Project Human
by randomsomeone
Summary: Growing up gets a little more treacherous, as friendship, caring, and the rehabilitation of those in need eventually all boils down to . . . What? LeeSakuGaa triangle, just to confuse things. Finished!
1. 1

Experiments in fiction blathering...  
Project Human – No longer just another uber-cool Dieselboy cd.  
The standard disclaimer applies. I don't own any characters, any of the songs I mention, etc. I'm just out to see if I can make it work again. I did promise the other side of the coin, after all...  
Am running off of the manga & what I understand it to have said. At the point this was written, I was up to 232 and tired of waiting around.  
And I believe I'm blaming this all on a residual Goth boy fetish.

Music: Mogwai—Hunted by a Freak (Attention Deficit's mix)

* * *

It wasn't until right before Sakura's second chuunin exam that Sasuke decided he wanted to see her. So she went, at first uncertain, hesitant, then angry, for the first meeting with the reason for so much trouble in months.

And she'd been so eager, so anxious when they started coming back from the mission to retrieve him from Orochimaru's henchmen . . . But that had evaporated in the face of the results.

**ooo**

At first she hadn't really noticed anything except the blond head she darted to, hoping upon hope that Naruto had fulfilled his promise to bring Sasuke back, but had slowed upon realizing that he was alone and beyond miserable. Her surroundings came into focus as he threw himself into her arms and started bawling out his story.

"Yeah, he won, but there wasn't anything we could do by the time we found him. There would have had to have been a medical ninja on the spot to save him, but the wounds Neji took . . ."

Hinata and Tenten were locked together, keening.

"And Chouji... Shikamaru carried him back. He wouldn't let anyone else touch him. He refused. Kiba was wounded, but he'll be ok."

To their side, Kiba and Kankurou worriedly circled Temari, who exuded protectiveness as she cradled a sobbing Shikamaru against her shoulder.

She hated herself for asking. "Sasuke?"

"I did it. I told him I'd bring him back if I had to break both his arms and his legs, and he wouldn't come back, so I did. But... he was lucid. He wanted to go. He wanted power. And because he wanted it..."

Because he wanted it, all of this happened. Something in her hardened. Later on, she would look back on that point as her first step to truly growing up.

Detachedly, she noticed one person trying to evade the proceedings, only to be headed off by Konoha's recently resurrected Beautiful Green Beast. Rock Lee's stance said that he had a declaration to make, and Gaara's expression said that he had never been the recipient of such a declaration and didn't know to run for his life yet.

Lee clenched his jaw against his quivering chin and straightened his shoulders, determined. "Gaara of the Desert, I have given thought to our discussion from earlier! I have decided that there has been too much hurt done to all of us, and that I will try to allay that, starting with you!" He pointed. Gaara blinked. "As long as I live, know that there is no longer a reason for you to be lonely!"

Lee's thumb turned up and teeth flashed in his official Good Guy pose.

Gaara's mouth dropped open. For a second, he looked like nothing more than a lost, bewildered child. Then his mouth snapped shut and forehead wrinkled in consternation. "And they try to tell me that I'm insane," he said, then turned and walked off.

But in less than a week, he was back.

In the meantime, Sasuke's broken limbs had been set but not healed. Tsunade questioned Naruto thoroughly on the workings of their battle, of Sasuke's new abilities, and assigned eight ANBU to guard the Uchiha's room at all times.

"They really don't trust him," Naruto told her later, on their way to work on taijutsu with Lee. "But right now..." He watched the ground in front of him, face twisted with misery. "I don't trust him either. You didn't see him. The only thing that mattered was power, and he didn't care if he had to help our worst enemy or kill me to get it."

"That's not the Sasuke we knew."

"Sometimes people change, though."

Sometimes they found Gaara with Lee, contentedly drilling taijutsu. The Sand ninja wouldn't be away for more than three weeks at a time, but wouldn't stay longer than three days.

"Don't you worry sometimes, Lee?" Naruto asked one day, between visits.

Lee grinned at him innocently, honestly. "No. All he really wants is someone to talk to, to be friends with, I think. Anyway, what's the worst he can do? Kill me? After all I've been through these past few months, I really don't think I'm afraid of anything he could do to me."

Naruto nodded thoughtfully, accepting. In a week and a half, she found the three boys trying to work out a three-man taijutsu sparring situation, and spent the afternoon laughing at them while trying to avoid being dragged in. Eventually her protests were worn down by Lee and Naruto, who promised to go easy on her before proceeding to beat her silly. Collapsing, laughing, away from their game, she looked over to see Gaara watching her bemusedly. "And I thought I was bad."

Inner Sakura screeched with outrage. Outer Sakura bit her lip and glared, then grumbled: "Are you gonna get pissed off and kill me if I throw something at you?"

He blinked, startled. "No?"

"Good!" With that, she ripped up a chunk of grass and pitched it at him. He caught it and threw it back in time to almost get hit by her second missile. Plants, mud, and small rocks flew. Luckily for her, his sand shields had to drop for him to be able to throw things back at her. She managed to hit him once in the chest with a clod of dirt before something whuumped down around her and she found herself digging out of a pile of sand to the boys' laughter.

Gaara folded his arms, smirked arrogantly at her. "Can't you do better than that?"

She spit out sand, shook her head to send it flying. "You son of a –"

"We can't leave you two alone for a minute," Naruto choked out, then dropped, clutching his sides and rolling with laughter.

Gaara looked up at Lee, expression blank. "I need to work on shielding and deflecting while returning fire, apparently."

While still standing, Lee didn't look like he'd stay up too much longer. "I think you get to work on that with her."

And with that, they had pulled her in. Guiltily, she still avoided the bad days, the days that Lee and Naruto tried to walk Gaara through his rages, through understanding something that managed to elude him while still giving him skull-splitting migraines. But even though she avoided the problems, she still became somewhat more comfortable around him.

**ooo**

Tsunade met her at the door to the building housing Sasuke. Late afternoon's sunlight cast a golden sheen over both her and the door at her back. "Before I ask you anything, I'll tell you that he may not be the person you knew before."

"I understand."

"He's been pretty calm for the past few weeks, which is why I decided that he can see a visitor. Naruto would be a bad choice, since he's the one who brought him back. You're innocuous enough that you shouldn't set him off." She chuckled. "That, and he can't go see the final chuunin battles if he acts up any more."

"He acts up?"

Tsunade considered her, as if trying to decide on what she could say, then nodded. "He hasn't been bad lately, but at first he was out of control. That's why I left his arms and legs to heal naturally. To help keep him from getting past the ANBU before they understood what they were dealing with."

_What_, Sakura thought. _Not who. What. _"I'll try not to upset him."

"On the contrary. Talk to him like you normally would. I can't be sure that Orochimaru no longer has a hold on him, but I can't keep him locked up forever. If he can handle your presence without flying into murderous rages, there's a better chance that he can handle normal social interaction, and therefore a better chance that I'll be able to let him out at some point. And also... From what I understand, you were close to him, so you may be more able to see the good in him than another."

"Close to him." Sakura sighed. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. At one point, you could even say I thought I loved him."

**ooo**

One night, a few months after Naruto carried Sasuke home, broken and unconscious, she had gone over to Lee's for a friendly dinner to find Gaara in the corner, observing the proceedings quietly.

"When'd you get in?"

"About an hour ago," he replied, watching Lee dash frantically between the kitchen and table.

She wasn't sure when she'd realized that he was fun to provoke, but figured it was after one of their dirt wars. Raising an eyebrow at him, she quipped, "So instead of helping, you lurk in the corner."

He met her eye and glared. "I am not lurking."

"Ok, hiding."

He huffed and strode past where Lee, having burnt his hand on something, was jumping up and down, yelping. Seconds later, he emerged from the kitchen with a dripping towel. By that time, Lee was bouncing around the room.

"So instead of helping, you hide by the door?"

She laughed. "I'm lurking. Get it right."

He smirked. She grinned back, and together they advanced on their gibbering friend.

After dinner, Sakura picked up one of Lee's books and sat on the floor to start on it, leaning against a wall with her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. Audaciously, Lee lay down beside her and pillowed his head on one of her thighs, grinning up at her indignant shriek and even accepting the smack she gave him. His good-humored over-the-top pleas about being a wounded warrior needing comfort won her over, though, and eventually he fell asleep.

Sometime later, she looked down from her reading, then put the book aside. While sleeping, the arch of his cheekbones and curve of his lips made his face seem almost noble. She was trying to figure out how she could get scissors and trim his eyebrows into a normal shape when, from a spot on the floor across the room, Gaara spoke.

"Do you love him?"

Inner Sakura clutched her chest, spun, and fell over. Outwardly, she considered Lee, fingers brushing hair back from his forehead. "I don't know."

"How do you not know?"

He hadn't sounded that agitated, that defensive since they had decided that Gai and Tsunade had to know that he was around every so often. She looked up, tried to phrase her answer carefully. "It's not that simple. I just... I think of him as a friend and I –"

"I think I do."

Inner Sakura revived herself for just long enough to fall over again.

He continued, clipping his words, seeming anxious. "It's when you would die to protect someone, right? And you don't want to think about them not being around anymore, right?"

"Oh! You mean... like a friend."

"Of course I do, what else could I..." He blinked, eyes huge, and suddenly was a shocked child again. "No! I mean, that's... Could that even work? And how would -"

She covered her mouth with her hand, afraid to disturb Lee. "I don't know. You might..." Trying to swallow her laughter made her cough. "You might have to ask someone that would."

He shook his head, looking down. Every line of his body radiated bashfulness. And because he seemed open, and human, she had to ask.

"Gaara, why... Why are you here?"

He shifted from bashful to cautiously defensive, muscles tensing like a cornered animal's before she could draw breath. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering... What you get out of this. Here."

His shoulders sank and he looked at the floor. "There I'm alone. Here I have... People I can talk to, and train with, and..." He smiled faintly, the movement disturbing the cruel set of his mouth. "And throw dirt at. Here is... Kinder to me than there."

"But..." She bit her lip and hoped it didn't come out as harsh as it sounded in her head. "From all of this... What do you really want?"

He met her eyes, expression so fiercely needy that her breath hitched. "To understand."

And she might understand. She looked down at her lap. Lee's head was on her left thigh. Her right was free.

_You're out of your mind,_ Inner Sakura told her.

_Shut up, you,_ she replied.

"Gaara... Come here."

He stood, watching her cautiously, then crossed the room to the spot she gestured to. Understanding flickered across his expression, and he lay down, facing away from her, and settled his head against her leg, one hand gently draping across her knee.

_Lost child and rabid demon. Monster and human._ The haunted look in his eyes wrenched at her heart. Unbidden, she whispered, "What happened to you?"

And he started to talk.

Her fingers crept into his hair as she learned how he went from experiment to liability to weapon. First suicide attempt at age six. First kill before that. And first friends more than six years later.

His fingers didn't tighten, his expression didn't change, but his voice shifted to confused, wounded, a child trying to figure out why bad things had to happen to him. Every sentence started the same way. "And then... And then..."

Family ties not used to nurture, but to control. Loss. Suffering. And over all of that, a mind-shattering loneliness.

Sometime during his story, she realized that Lee was wrong. There were worse things you could do to a person than kill them.

**ooo**

Climbing the stairs after Tsunade, Sakura reflected on the situation she had unwittingly created. Gaara still trained with them, still talked to them normally, but developed the habit of following her until she either got home or to the nearest secluded area. And then... It was either a murmured "Please?" or "May I?" And she would sit down, and let him put his head in her lap, and would wait, running fingers through his hair, until he seemed ready to deal with the world again. Some nights she fell asleep that way, and would wake up to find a blanket tucked around herself but him still in place, wide-eyed, fingertips brushing her knee absently.

"Are you ready, Sakura?" Tsunade turned, hand on the doorknob.

_I'm still not sure if he's really craving physical affection or just comfort... _"Oh? Oh, yeah. I'm ready."

"I'll wait out here."

Sasuke turned lazily to meet her as she entered the windowless room. His standard jacket was nowhere to be seen, leaving him in unmarked black clothing. The planes and angles of his face that she had been entranced by before seemed sharpened by his captivity.

_He looks haggard,_ she thought. _He looks like he's just getting over a major illness._

"Sakura."

"Sasuke." The word slipped bitterly from her lips.

She eyed the masked ANBU around the walls. He noticed her look and smirked. "Yeah, it's odd. But you get used to them, after a while."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke..."

He made a slashing gesture with his hand, considered her wryly. "Don't be. After all, I brought it on myself, right?"

She clasped her hands in front of herself and said nothing.

"So, tell me. What have I missed out there?"

_Shikamaru, sobbing. The dazed, lost look Hinata carried around for weeks afterward._

She bit her lip. "Not too much."

"Getting ready for the chuunin exam again?"

"Yeah."

"I know they had to restructure the teams since so many people are gone. So who did you guys get?"

_So flippant, so uncaring. What are you now?_

"We asked to work with Lee. We're technically training with Gai-sensai, but Naruto and I go to Kakashi-sensai to work on our chakra sometimes. And then Naruto trains with Jiraya too."

"Lee recovered from his injuries?"

"Yeah, the Fifth fixed him up completely." She paused. Inner Sakura did a belligerent little dance. _Screw it. I'll say it anyway._ "He was an unofficial part of the party that went out to recover you."

He sniffed disdainfully. "I know. And I still can't see Lee recovering anything."

Her hands clenched and she glared. "He got up from his hospital bed and got out there in time to save Naruto from something called Kimimaro."

"And who saved him?"

Inner Sakura snarled. _Fuck your attitude, you won't see this one coming!_ "Gaara did."

She was right. His eyes widened and he even backed up a step, but then settled. "Because of the treaty?"

Bloated on ego, sweetly venomous, she continued. "Yeah, but now they're _best_ of friends. He even trains with us sometimes."

Sasuke's expression slid from disbelief to something harder, more hateful. "Does he now."

Faced with what Naruto had surely faced, with her former teammate's suddenly unstable demeanor, her sureness crumbled. She scrambled for handfuls of it, knowing that she was talking too much but unable to stop. "Yeah. He trains hand-to-hand combat with Lee mostly, stuff that requires chakra molding with Naruto, and..." _Nope, no normal way to put it, so I'll just avoid all of it. Sasuke, honey, I've been known to throw dirt at one of your biggest rivals under the guise of training, and then he snuggles with my leg. Whatever._ "And I do a little of both."

His voice followed his expression, rippling with contempt. "Do you." Without warning he moved forward, grabbing onto her arms and inhaling deeply at the side of her face.

_Six months ago you'd have been in heaven right now,_ Inner Sakura mused.

"Sasuke, what are you _doing?_" She hated herself for the squeak, for the pitch her voice hit at the end of the question.

"You don't smell like him. You couldn't have seen him recently." He let go of her but didn't back away.

"What?"

"That damned demon Sand bastard." Inches away from her face, Sasuke's expression took on an intensity that frightened her. "Can you smell the blood on his hands? Or do you care? Do you think about what he tried to do to us, or did you just fall onto him as the next strong guy to cross your path?"

"It's not _like_ that. He's a _friend._" Rage was coiling coldly in the pit of her stomach. If he continued, she'd explode.

"Of course he is. Is that what you tell yourself every time you roll over and let him –"

_Crack!_

Some quiet, rational part of herself noted that Lee's taijutsu drills had certainly upped her speed. She hadn't even known her hand was moving until it had connected with Sasuke's face; and judging from his expression, he hadn't known it either.

His eyes flickered away from their normal color to the fully-developed Sharingan. "Do that again. I dare you."

She shook. "You don't get it. Can't you get past who's around to see who's not around? Don't you care about the people that died trying to save you? The others that should be getting ready for this chuunin exam too, but that can't?"

"They were weak," he growled.

Her heart sank. Reaching behind her, she felt for the doorknob. "At some point or another, we're all weak, Sasuke. Are we all so deserving?"

Before he could respond, she was out the door.

**ooo**

Tsunade accompanied her to the front door, but stopped her before she could leave. "I knew that you and your teammates had taken it upon yourselves to socialize Gaara. However, I heard you stumble over your role in whatever it is he does here."

The unstated question shook her moroseness away. Sakura felt the beginnings of a blush start to color her cheeks and tried to fight it down mercilessly. _I will not blush. I will not. There's nothing wrong with anything I've done here._ "Well, I still work on hand-to-hand combat with him, but we all do. I think he realized how bad he was in that after the last exam, you know? And I work on chakra molding sometimes with him, but he's kind of discouraging, since the little stuff doesn't faze him. And _anything_ I can do apparently counts as little stuff. So he mostly works on that with Naruto, because they can keep up with each other." She smiled self-consciously and ran a hand through her hair. "And for a little bit he decided that he needed to work on projectile defense, so I threw things at him until he got bored, which was when he'd bury me alive."

Tsunade's eyebrows were trying to crawl up into her hairline.

"No, no, it's ok, it'd never be much and he wouldn't pack it so I could get out easily and -"

She was cut off by the other woman's low chuckle. "And all this time, you guys have been keeping him out of trouble. I applaud you for not making me regret working out the visitation arrangement with the Kazekage."

Something suddenly occurred to Sakura, and she spoke before she thought. "Yeah, we haven't had any problems at all since..." She trailed off.

"Since?" Tsunade's look shifted to predatory, to the expression of a hunter that had maneuvered their prey into a corner.

Her cheeks were burning. _Damn it! It's nothing dirty and nothing awful and nothing to be ashamed of so why am I doing this?_ "I... I guess you could say I'm around more for comfort than the training aspect anymore. I still train with them but... He hasn't had an episode since I let him... Well, he... I..." Nothing sounded right.

"You mean you _are_ sleeping with him?"

Inner Sakura spontaneously combusted. "No! I mean -" _Shit. Shit! Spit it out!_ Her words tripped over each other in their hurry to meet the air. "He uses my leg for a pillow and apparently it calms him down and there's been a few times I've gone to sleep with him like that but- No! Not _like that!_ I mean, what I mean is..."

"Physical comfort as opposed to anything sexual."

"Yes!" Air gusted out of her in relief. Then she laughed. "I've gotten pretty adept at sleeping while sitting up, you know?"

Tsunade considered her for a moment, touching her lower lip with a finger in a pensive pose. "You do understand that, as the main female in his life, you've taken on a lot of responsibility, right?"

She blinked, confused. "How so? I mean, I... Right now, if anything, he's more open with Lee and Naruto, you know?"

"Any chance he's gay?"

She remembered his reaction in Lee's apartment and stifled a giggle. "I don't know."

"How old is he?"

"I think he's thirteen now, but I'm not sure."

A sniff. "He's young still. We'll see soon enough then, I suppose. There's a chance that things will work their way out the more he tries to come to grips with society." Tsunade sighed. "But as for the real reason I brought you here."

Sakura shook her head. Dismay, in Sasuke's form, loomed up out of her subconscious to smirk at her. "I don't know. He's just..."

"Sasuke was actually on his best behavior tonight."

_Wow._ "That's... not good."

"It means he's trying, so it actually is good."

"Does he even understand that..." Her throat tightened. "That our friends died to save him, and to save us from what would have happened had Orochimaru gotten him?"

"Oh, I believe he understands. I'm not so sure that he cares."

_Chouji, munching frantically at the last chuunin exam. Neji's brilliant arrogance._ A tear silvered her cheek, unchecked. "I know what we've lost, but... What else has _he_ lost?"

"That's why we're trying to rehabilitate him." Tsunade opened the door for her. Outside, night had fallen. "If I have further need of you?"

Duty numbed her, but not enough. "Yeah. Just let me know. I'll try to help."

**ooo**

She picked a rooftop and waited, sure that Lee or Naruto would come to find her at some point. Sometimes she cried for what they as a whole had lost. Sometimes she cried at her own foolishness and idealism. It wasn't until time had worn her emotions down to numbness and the air was chilled enough to make her shiver that she heard the step behind her.

She spoke without turning around. "I'd expected you earlier."

The voice was low, cool, night air and river stones. And underneath of that, all of unholy hell. "I'm surprised you expected me at all."

The leather straps holding his gourd on creaked as Gaara sat beside her.

She bit back sudden uncertainty, disappointment that he wasn't one of her teammates. "How's Lee?"

"I didn't see him yet, but I assume he's training. It's about time for him to step things up again."

Which meant that he'd bypassed the training fields to find her. There was only one reason that he'd come to her first. She wondered if he would want to spend the whole night on the rooftop. But it wasn't his usual request that she heard.

"How was your day?" Cautious, hesitant. As if sounding out the words.

Her reply was no less hesitant, but for different reasons. "It was okay, I guess." _Up until I got to see the once love of my life and found out that he's a flaming insane, accusatory, remorseless monster, that is._

He made a noncommittal noise.

She felt the need to keep up her end of the conversation, as it were. "Yours?"

"All right. Temari and Kankurou get here tomorrow for the chuunin exam. I came ahead." He set his elbows on his bent knees, gestured with one hand. "Beat the rush, right?"

His hand caught her attention. Wide, with blunt-tipped fingers, it seemed somewhat outsized in relation to the rest of him.

"Hey, you okay?"

She blinked, refocused. "Yeah. You have to take the chuunin exam again? And them too?"

"Yeah." A corner of his mouth twisted up as he stared off across the city. "I obviously didn't make it. Even if my match wasn't cut short, I was out of control. Kankurou forfeited his match, and Temari was paying more attention to her opponent than to what her opponent was doing. None of us passed. But, against the wishes of some, we get to try it again."

"Things are tense this year."

"Yeah. The alliance is strained, so we have to walk carefully."

_We get to try it again. Some..._ Burnt-out emotions flared. Her chin quivered, and she sniffed. _And Sasuke doesn't care._

Fingers reached out, tipped her chin up and towards his curious expression. "You're not okay."

She sniffed again. "I'm fine, I just..."

His arm raised, inviting. "Come here." She hesitated. "Comfort," he continued. "Like what you do for me." Somewhere in the sentence his voice cracked, dropped an octave, and he chuckled quietly. "It keeps doing that. I'm starting to think that I shouldn't talk."

"It's okay," she murmured as his arm settled around her, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. _He doesn't smell like blood. He actually smells kind of nice. Sasuke, you're an idiot._

_I think this is the first time he's really treated me as something other than a sub-standard sparring partner, or an ambulatory pillow._

"So what's wrong?"

"Sasuke asked to see me, so I went and talked to him."

A pause. "And?"

She bit her lip. "And he doesn't care about the people that died to bring him home safe. And he accused me of..." She sniffled again, wiped at her eyes. The arm around her shoulders tightened gently, but he said nothing. After a minute, his hand crept up into her hair, fingers caressing against her scalp in blatant imitation of the way she touched him.

_Wow. That **is** nice._

_You know,_ Inner Sakura piped up. _Once he grows into those hands and that voice, you and every girl in Konoha will be in big trouble._

_Huh?_

_Think about it. He's a quiet, pensive, reforming sociopath that just happens to be obscenely strong, and whose ideas of a good time include training and a few hours of asexual physical contact. _

_Wonder what he'll look like once he gets older._ She glanced over, trying to mentally smooth the rounded cheeks into a final, polished version. Her end result...

_If you're right, you're in all kinds of trouble._

_But for now, he... actually feels kinda safe._

He turned away from the view to meet her eyes. What she saw collapsed all pleasant postulation upon itself. His voice was hard, flat. All of unholy hell. "He hurt you."

_Add fiercely protective to the lineup. Fiercely, scarily protective. What'd I say about safe? I lied. _"It's okay."

"No it's not."

"But it's done, and there's nothing I can do about it now but get over it."

"I can do something about it."

For a second, she was sure her heart stopped. The hand that wasn't in her hair reached forward to wipe a tear track away as he continued in a conversational tone. "I could fix it for you."

Full implications spun, landed on her as she stared at him, unblinking. "You couldn't."

"The ANBU guarding him would be no problem. The only thing that would take any time would be if he turned into the second form Naruto mentioned."

This casual reference to his abilities shocked her almost as much as what he was offering. She gripped onto his arm. "No, I mean you can't!"

His voice shifted away from conversational and back to flat, his expression vaguely annoyed. "Why not?"

"Because we can't just go around killing the people that upset us!" She tried to pull back, but the arm around her shoulders wasn't budging.

"If he hurt you once, what else will stop him from doing it again?"

If she didn't stop him, he would make good on his offer, and the resulting battle would kill more people than she wanted to think about. The only thing she could do was head him off at the pass. She glared. "If that's how things should work, then what should I do with you?"

He blinked, then grinned, sweeping from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other instantaneously. The arm around her shoulders relaxed but didn't fall away. "Good save."

Inner Sakura stomped. _What the hell is that supposed to mean?_

_Insane. Completely out of his mind. I don't care what he's gonna look like. _

_Liar, _Inner Sakura chortled.

"Well?"

The question's tone came out pleasant, conversational. She looked up at him suspiciously as he stood. "Well, what?"

"You need to sleep. We have the first part of the test tomorrow."

"Yeah." She considered the hand he offered her, then grabbed his wrist and was tugged lightly to her feet. "I guess I should get home."

His fingers still encircled her wrist. She recognized his expression. "When we get there..."

She sighed, smiling faintly. "Yes, you may."


	2. 2

Thanks to Doranobaka for the spelling of metronome. Congratulations, you win a... er... Shout-out. Hello!  
May go through and edit still, but hopefully I've worked out most of the kinks.

* * *

Noting their approach, Kakashi waved to Lee and Sakura from his point along the railing overlooking the stadium's grounds. "Come on, you two. The final matches are about to begin."

Pacing between him and Gai was a keyed-up Naruto, too full of energy to keep still. Jiraiya, on the other hand, looked like he was more ready for a nap than an afternoon of battle-observing.

"I see everyone came out for this one," Lee grinned.

"Even Sasuke," Sakura noted, looking a few tiers up to where, flanked by ANBU, a familiar dark-headed shinobi stood silent watch.

Thankfully, Sakura and Lee had both expected the testing to be harder that time around, and had drilled book-knowledge into Naruto until he was—unhappily—able to pass the written part of the exam. The primary part of the trial in the forest had finished for them after they fought and beat Tenten's new team, but the secondary, the fighters positioned around their destination, had proven harder to win against. Apparently the added difficulty had proven hard for too many others, as well. Only four teams qualified for the final test phase, and of those twelve people, two dropped out because of their injuries.

"Glad we didn't have to do preliminaries this time," she said, almost to herself.

"Eh?" Lee blinked at her, then smiled with understanding. "Yeah. This ought to be interesting enough as it is."

Their three passed. Two from Rain passed, as well as two from Grass. And of course, the three from Sand passed. Her first fight was against a Rain ninja, Lee's against a Grass. But Naruto...

"We can still call the fight, Naruto," Kakashi offered. "With relations between Leaf and Sand this strained, either way the fight between you and Gaara ends, things will be ugly."

Naruto stopped pacing for long enough to face his former instructor, jaw set and teeth bared in fierce determination, eyes gleaming with ego and trouble. "It'll be ok. Just watch. Besides, if either Lee or Sakura wins their match, then they probably have to fight a Sand-nin too. So there's no point in canceling mine." Then he resumed pacing.

Lee went up first, and put his opponent in the dust in record time. The Grass ninja stubbornly refused to give up until the point that he became all too familiar with Initial Lotus. Beating his opponent into unconsciousness apparently qualified as a win for Lee. Scattered applause marked his departure from the arena floor.

Lee bounded back up to her side, prodded her with an elbow, then colored. "Hey. Give any thought to what I said earlier?"

Stuttering and blushing, shifting from one foot to the other until he'd resembled nothing more than a human-shaped green metronome, he'd managed to ask if she would like to go out sometime. Taken aback, she'd told him she'd think about it. And she still was.

_He's... **unique,** yeah, but he's a nice guy._

_Maybe you can get the chance to trim his eyebrows down after all,_ Inner Sakura noted.

Assorted possible scenarios marched across her mental vision. Half of them made her giggle, the other half made her cringe.

_But really. He's good, he's sweet, he brings me flowers, and he's got a decent sense of how to treat a girl, **unlike** the other guys in my life. If I remember correctly..._

Naruto's best moment has been to keep his new pet praying mantis out of her food, after letting it scare her almost out of her seat. And Gaara, after a snarling exchange that drove a particularly hands-on and persistent Sound genin away from her, had responded to her anger at not being allowed to fight her own battles with a comment so creatively obscene that she'd been shocked speechless. She'd gone from stunned to mortified when an equally slack-jawed Ino had asked if that meant he was hitting on her.

He'd sought her out to apologize later, explaining that he didn't think he could seem close to any of them for their safety and even blaming the quip on one of Jiraiya's books. He actually seemed confused as to why she'd think he'd meant any of it, claiming that friends don't do things like that so she should have known better. But he'd still given her some very strange mental pictures to sort through, all of which both thoroughly disgusted and disturbingly intrigued her.

Even if she refused to admit the latter.

_I will not have a crush on him. I will not, will not, will not! I'm done with angsty, angry, distant psychopaths! _

Almost defiantly, she turned to Lee. "Yeah, I will. How's ice cream sound, once this is all done here?"

She thought he would shout, dance, but that was cut off by Naruto's dismayed sound. Kankurou's battle was finishing.

"Oh." As one, they cringed.

"That was messy," Kakashi said, seeming for the most part unfazed.

The referee's voice drifted up to them. "Winner, Kankurou!"

"Your match, Sakura." Naruto gave her a brotherly pat on the back. Lee gave her a wink and a thumbs-up.

The Rain ninja she was fighting eventually threw up a giant shield of what looked like stabilized water. Sakura paused for a second, impressed at the amount of chakra it had to have taken to create such a wall, then set a shadow clone to climbing over it. Another clone was placed a short distance away, apparently digging under the wall. She herself found the wall's edge, and while her opponent was busy with the clones, she snuck up behind them and dispatched them with one of the combinations Lee had taught her. She arrived back at her spot in time to see Temari's match start.

"I still can't believe that Sound sent genin here to test," Naruto mused from beside her.

"Yeah," she replied absently.

"I guess the forest was too much for them, though."

In defiance of just about everything that had happened in the past few months--or perhaps in spite of it--Sound had sent three teams to attempt to test up. They were loud, rude, aggressive, and the guys had leered a little too much at the female Leaf genin for Sakura's own peace of mind. And none of them came out of the forest, period.

"Yeah," she nodded, watching a definitely outclassed Rain ninja be battered into bleeding submission. This time, apparently, Temari was keeping track of her surroundings well enough to notice and deflect any attacks the other fighter made, no matter what angle they came from. From almost directly across the stadium, her brothers watched impassively.

Naruto's voice took on a slight edge. "Know anything about what happened to them?"

Temari had cornered her before their last meeting with the Hokage. "What'd you guys do to him?" At Sakura's startled confusion, she elaborated: "Gaara. We beat our old time by ten minutes, but then he went back out through the line. Alone. He came back the next day with three more scrolls. Look at who's here and who's not, who walked or was carried out and who _can't be found_, and _you_ tell _me_ what he's done."

Naruto was still waiting. "He culled them," Sakura whispered, suddenly realizing exactly what he had done. Not just killing. Cleaning. "Like picking weeds out of a garden. Or stones out of a pile of sand."

Reconciling the mental image of him as a blood-covered, howling embodiment of Destruction with her memory of the somewhat dusty, almost cheery boy she'd found waiting on her doorstep two weeks before was proving awfully hard.

"Really," Gai said, raising an eyebrow, making an educated guess at who "he" was. She hadn't known he was listening.

"Ought to put a damper on Sound's up-and-coming, if this many get wiped out so early on," Kakashi nodded.

_And of course, it almost seems like those two think better of him for it!_ Inner Sakura rolled her eyes.

Naruto shrugged, grinned. "Looks like it's almost time for my match!"

"Naruto..." Gai started.

Jiraiya straightened, suddenly appearing fully awake. "It's okay."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "We're just gonna have a good, clean, by-the-rules fight."

He looked out across the open air, seeking his opponent. As one, they leapt over the railing into the arena.

Lee glanced over at her. "You're worried?"

Inner Sakura stomped, screeched._ Damn straight I am!_ Outwardly, Sakura was more composed. "Yeah. I don't want... I don't want either of them to get hurt. But these are supposed to be..."

"They know exactly what this battle is supposed to be," Lee said. "Both of them."

Below them, the combatants attacked each other, and her attention was riveted on them. At first, it was simple things. Shadow replicates fought sand clones. Shuriken met sand shields, and a blond in an orange outfit wove and dipped around sandy missiles. Then things went to another level.

"The sheer volume of chakra they're using is certainly impressive," Kakashi said after a while, as if to himself.

"Think they can keep it up?" Gai responded.

Jiraiya smirked. "You think any student of mine wouldn't have the sense not to overexert himself?"

"It's Naruto," Kakashi returned. Jiraiya huffed and crossed his arms.

Below them, Naruto's Rasengan made contact, but his opponent's replacement exploded into a cloud of sand. The real Gaara dropped, slamming open palms onto the ground. A wall of sand rose up and swamped half of the arena, Naruto included. Sakura gasped. Beside her, Lee chuckled. "I remember that one!"

Before she had the time to turn on him for laughing at what could possibly be the end of their teammate, a toad the size of a small house dug its way out of the newly formed desert, Naruto clinging to its back.

Gai didn't look away from the proceedings. "Summoning technique, eh, Jiraiya?"

Sand shields and deft maneuvering kept any of the toad's attacks from succeeding. Eventually, after a sand spike narrowly missed skewering the toad's head—and Naruto with it—Naruto dismissed it. And that's when Gaara shifted shapes.

Obviously still miffed from Kakashi's comment, Jiraiya was the only one who didn't look shocked at the creature now facing off with Naruto. Sakura's hand went to her mouth, and she bit her knuckle, trembling. _The last time he did that was... _Somebody was going to die.

"Sakura."

She turned away from the shadow replicates bombarding and being destroyed by the sand demon to meet Lee's too-calm expression. "It's okay."

Fear and frustration boiled over. "What do you mean, it's _okay?_"

"They know exactly what the mood of the crowd is. They know exactly how relations are. And it's okay."

Apparently Naruto had damaged Gaara's second form enough to warrant him dropping it. Sand fell away from the red-headed ninja, who straightened, flexed his hands, and smirked. The expression was matched by Naruto, and the two charged at each other again.

Gai blinked. "Taijutsu?"

The display was blinding. Neither gave more than they received.

"They're out of chakra, then? If so, they should both drop soon."

"Don't bet on it, Kakashi," Jiraiya scowled.

"Their flow," Gai whispered, eyes welling up with emotion. "It's beautiful."

Long minutes passed. Lee grinned at a particular move, even though she didn't see how he could catch it at the speed the two were moving. "Heh. I taught him that."

She was missing something, something major. "What?"

"It's okay. They're playing by the rules."

His offhanded dismissal of her worry served only to piss her off. "I know the damn rules! The rules are kill or be killed, or beat the other person so badly that they can't continue and the referee steps in to stop things, and you know as well as I do that both of them down there are _stupid_ enough to prefer to die than let the other win!"

Inner Sakura screeched again. _Guys! I hate them! All of them!_

Now rolling around on the ground, it looked like the combatants were trying to throttle each other.

"All the rules."

Something major. Her tone was harsh, angry. "What am I missing?"

"The rules state that the competitors show off the best of their abilities to those around them, show how capable they are of being an asset to their village, becoming a better ninja."

In the arena, the two boys rolled away from each other, panting, then attacked again. This time chakra-based offenses were mixed in with the taijutsu. Lee frowned. "I didn't teach them that."

"Them? You've been teaching them?_ Both of them?_" Gai whipped away from the railing to face his student.

Lee's hands came up, defensive. "It's the only way they could make it work!"

She tugged his arm back down. "What!"

"The rules! To continue fighting until the referee ends things, until someone dies, or –"

In the ring, Naruto and Gaara broke again, paused, then straightened. Each bared teeth at the other in matching smirks. Hands shot into the air simultaneously.

"I give!"

Lee continued. "Or gives up."

Gai and Kakashi stared. She stared. Jiraiya chuckled. "They're not done yet."

To the referee's dismay, the boys closed the space between them. Palm hit palm with a single smack, and clasped hands jerked to the sky. Their twinned roar was drowned out by the crowd's exuberant response.

"Allies!"

_Oh. Oh wow. They... Oh wow. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not. _

Beside her, Lee bawled unabashedly. "Beautiful! Just beautiful!"

"They didn't tell us," Gai gaped.

"Of course not," Jiraiya grinned. "If either of you had anything to do with it, then it would be argued that at least one of them had been pressured into something. Those two came up with this themselves."

"It seemed awfully... real to be choreographed." Kakashi scratched his head.

"That's because it was real. It's what they've been doing every day now for the past two weeks, since they figured out that they were too evenly matched for either to have a clean win. This was just another chance for them to try to beat the living hell out of each other. There was no way a fight to the finish between them could end in something other than them both dead, or one dead and one almost there. That wouldn't do anything good for relations. They knew this. They also knew that they knew each other's moves well enough to not be killed by them in this span of time. So, when they bounced the idea off of me, as an older, wiser, and unbiased individual, I approved."

_Two weeks ago he came to you, filthy and happy, and let you pet him and feed him and didn't tell you a damn thing._

_I really hate guys,_ Inner Sakura grumped. But the sentiment faded as the two approached her, arms around each other's shoulders. Each was covered in bruises, scuffs, and dirt, yet still sported matched demented grins.

_Evenly matched, almost down to height. Wait - When the hell did they get that tall?_ The pair stopped in front of her, blue eyes at the level of hers, green eyes more than there, both nearly bursting with glee. She tried to think of something to say, some congratulatory words that they probably hadn't heard on the way up, mouth working soundlessly around a hopeless smile. But before she could put words to emotions Lee barreled into her, carrying her into them while wetly blubbering something mostly incoherent about how great they were. Squished between the trio, she couldn't help but laugh along.

She looked up in time to see Sasuke turn and walk away from his viewpoint, followed by his ANBU guards. Then the circle she was the center of started to squirm, prodding at one, shaking the other, voices raising in friendly bickering.

"You spiny Sand shit, you almost killed me out there!"

"You deserved it!"

"You think I deserved it? Get back out there with me now!"

"Sure you don't need a _nap_ first, so I don't really kill you this time?"

"With kicks like that, he probably _will_ kill you next time!"

"I did _not_ flub those kicks!"

"Yes you did!"

She added her voice to the fracas, amusedly yet vociferously protesting her ill treatment and pushing on the green and orange material that first fell under her hands. Lee and Naruto picked that moment to shove forward, each intent on getting in the other's face over the placement and speed of kicks that she really didn't remember seeing, and she was propelled backwards into a stable something that rumbled amusedly into her ear as a hand snaked around her to press and spread against her stomach.

From behind her, Gaara chuckled again. The act blew warm breath over the side of her neck, and she squirmed away from him, suddenly less than comfortable. "Guys? Guys! Hey, it's time for Lee to go up again."

Lee and Naruto let go of each other's collars abashedly, laughed. "Okay," Lee said. "Don't get into trouble while I'm gone!" He flashed them a smile and a thumbs-up, then bounced over the railing to meet Kankurou.

Someone cleared their throat. Turning as one to the sound, the three found Konoha's Eternal Rivals elbow to elbow, watching them. "You two," Gai grated. "Explain."

"Now," finished Kakashi.

Naruto slouched, fingers lacing behind his head. "What's to explain? We fought, we showed off, no one won but hey, who cares, right? We did it for the greater good, you know?"

"And it doesn't matter now what happens in the rest of the battles, whether Leaf or Sand wins," Gaara said. "Because the people are going to remember what we did instead of tallying up wins and losses."

"So you don't care that you don't advance." Kakashi's hand went to his chin.

The boys looked past her at each other, then shrugged. "Naa," grinned Naruto.

"Not at all," Gaara agreed.

"Even if you don't make chuunin because of it?"

Gaara's expression went cold. "If we don't, we'll try again next time. But it doesn't matter. We did what was needed for the good of the alliance."

The two instructors were silent, then nodded to each other. They turned as if to leave, then turned back. "Jiraiya, you too."

The Sannin snorted softly, but lurched after them. Left behind, the three resumed observing Lee's battle, watching as he danced between Kankurou's wires, puppets, and Kankurou himself.

Naruto folded his arms against the railing and braced his chin on them. "Think we're in trouble?"

Gaara leaned against the railing and blinked brightly at them, the corners of his mouth twitching. Apparently back to human mode, the only thing to really visually set him apart from any other gleefully trouble-seeking young male was the blackness around his eyes. "Who cares?"

Below, Lee had navigated Kankurou's wires and was engaging him in hand-to-hand combat. Kankurou didn't stay up for long, but refused to give once down. The pair grappled only briefly, the Sand ninja apparently too confused by the rolling around to properly be able to control his puppets, before Lee slipped behind him, wrapped legs around his chest, and locked the larger boy up in a choke. In seconds, Kankurou turned the color of the markings of his face, and his hand shot up in admission of defeat right before he passed out.

"_That'll_ count against him," Gaara murmured. Then, "I don't know how to do that well yet."

"Maybe next week," Naruto encouraged.

"I have to touch base with Sand first," he scowled.

"Whenever you're back, then."

Lee returned, as emotionally buoyant as he was when he'd left. "Sakura, you're up."

On the ground, Temari watched her cautiously over a half-spread fan. "If either of us killed either of you, he'd probably kill us, you know?"

She could be brave, too. "It doesn't matter. Give it your best."

Temari's best, she found, was actually rather painful. Shadow clones, replacements, and every trick she had learned from sparring with the boys eventually wore down to nothing. She woke up in time to see the referee declare the blonde girl the winner. Staggering past Lee, Sakura slapped him on the back. "Go get 'er, buddy."

"If I hadn't been kinda worried, that would have been funny," Naruto quipped as she returned. She couldn't think of anything pithy to say, so she hit him instead. He came up laughing. "Stamina is part of what they're looking for here, right?"

"Quiet." Gaara gave him a not-too-kind elbow. "They're starting."

Temari had apparently learned from her brother's mistake, and refused to let Lee get anywhere near her, battering him away with assorted assaults. Watching, Naruto grinned. "Looks like she'll give Fuzzy Eyebrows a good run for it, huh?"

"She's really good," Sakura agreed.

"Much better than she was before," Naruto proclaimed. "Glad I don't have to fight her."

Lee must have opened a gate, she decided, because he suddenly took off, blurring around the field while evading blasts of wind. Once he closed the distance between them to attack, though, his evasion didn't matter anymore. Temari took a few good hits, but the strikes seemed to help her figure out the pattern of his movements. Having found said pattern, she intercepted it, cracking him with her fan itself before launching him skyward. He bounced once, face down, and she was on him before he could hit the ground a second time, knee in his spine and drawn kunai placed at the back of his skull.

Lee raised a hand shakily, grinning at his predicament. "I give!"

Temari grunted, then stood, grabbing his raised hand to pull him to his feet. In the stands, Gaara sniffed, but the corner of his mouth twitched again.

"Winner, Temari!"

Lee laughed his way back to them, so ecstatic it as if he had won. "I did it!"

Naruto scratched his head, squinted. "Um, man, you lost. I think you bounced a little too hard there."

"I didn't die, I meant! Konoha's taijutsu specialist went up against not one, but two of Sand's best and survived! No, not just survived, to a point, succeeded!" He scooped Sakura up and spun her, shrieking, in a series of wobbly circles. "Ice cream for all of us! On me!"

Gaara prodded Naruto. "Like I said before. People try to tell me that _I'm_ insane, but they seem to forget _him._"

"Na. They don't forget him. They just try, sometimes."

Back on her feet but dizzy, Sakura clamped onto Naruto's shoulder. "That was _not_ fun."

The stands were starting to empty. Naruto glanced around, confused. "I guess we find out later?"

"Guess so," she said, releasing her grip on him. _I'm sure he'd prefer a giant ceremony, involving the entire village, if he did make it. But we don't know if he did, or if any of us did yet, so any ceremony, big or not, will have to wait._

"Guys!" Lee waved from over towards the exit. "Ice cream!"

With assorted sighs and chuckles, the trio turned to follow along behind him.

Once outside, Gaara paused, inhaling. Beside him, Sakura and Naruto turned, curious.

"The air," he said, as means of explanation. "Winter's promise."

They blinked, confused.

"It's a smell, and a taste, and..." He looked blankly at them for a second, then reached for Sakura's shoulders, turning her around to face the breeze. Naruto shrugged, then turned also.

"Breathe in through your nose and your mouth," he said from behind her, oblivious to the curious looks of the people passing by. "You'll feel it... In the back of your nose, and the tip of your tongue. And here sometimes, too." Fingers delicately traced her collarbones through her dirt-stained dress.

Frowning, trying to mentally put his proximity somewhere that it wouldn't bother her, she closed her eyes and inhaled, then shivered. "It's... cold. But not."

"That's weird," Naruto laughed. "They don't teach you _that_ in ninja academy!"

Sakura turned to meet a quiet, pleased half-smile. She wasn't sure whether she should thank him or tell him to not stand that close to her. Lee decided things for her by loudly returning. "Guys! What are you doing?"

Naruto cackled. "Special, secret, super ninja weather forecasting techniques!" His fist shot into the air and he hopped from one foot to the other.

Sakura rubbed her knuckles against her forehead and tried not to laugh at Lee's wide-eyed, shocked expression. "Really?"

"Kind of," she said. She didn't have to look back to know that Gaara was smirking.

"Will you guys tell me about it over ice cream?"

"Sure," came the low reply, and the Sand ninja stepped around her to walk ahead with his friend.


	3. 3

_The unicorn was believed to be fierce and difficult to capture, but if a virgin were brought before it, it would lay its head in the virgin's lap.  
_--Britannica Concise

Music: Paul Van Dyk – Furthermost, Android Lust – Heathen (A Thousand Thoughts), Frontline Assembly – Vanished

* * *

One of the good things about Sasuke being locked up, Sakura decided, was that she and Ino no longer had anything major to fight over. They still squabbled over silly, simple things – a hair band, who got to work with which novices on what day – but Sakura's outreach had mended any leftover hostilities between them.

Ino had been depressed after the breakup of her team, but Sakura hadn't known how bad it was until a couple days after her chuunin exam, when she found Ino on a park bench with her head in her hands, too silent, too still.

"Hey, Ino-pig," she tried, jovially. "Whatcha doin'?"

Nothing. Not even a twitch to indicate that she'd heard.

Disturbed, Sakura sat beside her, a hand hovering over the other girl's back cautiously. Ino's voice made her jump.

"Do you think... they'd think less of me? Shikamaru and... and Chouji?"

"What are you talking about?" The hand pulled back a little but continued to hover.

"If I quit being a ninja."

"What?"

"I'm no good at it. I barely made it out of the forest the first time, and I didn't make it this time, and I don't think I'll make it out alive next time, so what's the point in continuing?" The blonde girl's head shot up, fierce expression locked on to keep the tears at bay.

Sakura blinked, shocked. "Ino..."

"I mean, I can't even keep up with _you_."

The insult hadn't been meant to bite, and Sakura smiled, hooked her arm around Ino's neck. "Sure you could."

"You made it, didn't you?"

"Yeah." She'd just found out that she and Lee had passed their exam the day before. "They said that Lee and I both need to work on our strategy development, though."

Tension slowly slipped away from the other girl's body. "The others?"

"Temari passed, of course. Kankurou didn't. Neither did any of the Grass or Rain genin."

She paused deliberately, forcing Ino to react, ask. "And?"

"And Naruto and Gaara got a two-hour lecture from just about every authority figure from Gai on up about precedents and setting examples for genin to come." She sighed. "I don't think it would have been nearly that long if Naruto hadn't gone to sleep, though."

_I knew a bit of good gossip could get her going._ Sakura inwardly grinned as the wounded look started to fade from Ino's eyes. "He went to sleep in front of a group of –"

"A seriously pissed-off group, at that. Don't forget that part."

"Oh, no. So what happened?"

Sakura rolled her eyes skyward, doing her best to look bored, drawling every word. "Oh, after the lecturing and the grumbling and Naruto yelling at the Hokage again and the waiting for Naruto to wake up because Gaara blindsided him for being annoying and Naruto threatening Gaara and the instructors jumping in to defuse that since for all intents and purposes it looked like they were gonna have a rematch right there... Yeah, they made it. Both of them."

Ino laughed, delighted. It gave Sakura an opening. "Hey, about training. The guys want to start working on grappling, and... Well, you know, I'm not really comfortable with..."

The blonde girl's look sharpened to cheerfully predatory. "Don't feel like rolling around on the grass with Lee? Or even –"

"Don't even say it!" Sakura gave the short ponytail a sharp tug.

The eyes that met hers were full of viciously cheery speculation. "Whatever you say, Forehead-girl."

So Ino had come to train with her when their breaks from missions gave them time. They'd picked and sparred, bickered and drilled, quarreled and did groundwork with each other so intensely that they could sometimes pretend that the three watching them were interested only in technique.

Sometimes, though, the watching was too blatant, and they had to leave off with each other to chase down and batter Lee and Naruto. When they focused on Gaara, though, he would give them a completely innocent expression that would be almost as much of a deterrent as his reputation. And watching him try to control his sand for long enough to not smother his opponent at the same time as he tried to provide decent offense was amusing, to say the least.

"I know that I could kill an attacker that got that close to me," he said to them later, after Lee and Naruto had departed. His voice was flat, toneless, and from the look on Ino's face, still disturbing to those not used to it. "It would really just be a matter of how. But this is a good exercise in control."

Sakura looked up at him from where she and Ino sat, resting. "At the tournament, you didn't have the same problem when you and Naruto fought."

He shrugged. "We'd mostly tired ourselves out first. The combinations at the end... That was us being stubborn."

Eventually Ino would go, and Sakura would once again end up with her lap occupied. More and more often, he would lay on his back so he could look up at her, talk to her. It was always little, silly things - a joke he'd heard somewhere, a recounting of that day's work with Naruto or Lee, the horrors of his first group of genin. And she'd laugh, fingers smoothing his hair back, grazing over the kanji on his forehead.

It was strange to see him try so hard, to see him use phrases he had to have picked up from her teammates in an attempt to amuse her, but she wouldn't complain.

She eventually told Ino about what had become habit between herself and the Sand ninja. Ino had pursed her lips, chewed on a cuticle thoughtfully. "What about Lee?" she finally responded.

"We go out every once in a while. He's a gentleman." _He's not the one that Sand sends out as their one-man execution squad. _

_Damn you, do you still think less of him for it?_

"Don't you think you should stick with just one?"

Sakura blushed. "It's not like that. We're just friends."

"Uh-huh." The sound was delivered with no inflection that she could read. "Since you're just friends, does Lee know about the lap thing?"

She cringed. "No."

"Why not?"

_Because half of the time it's a secret, a precious secret that I regret telling even you about, and the rest of the time I'm not sure what to think of it myself. Hell, I couldn't tell you without stammering and stuttering. Some part of me, I'm sure, is even ashamed of it._

"Dunno," she murmured.

In only a few months, she had stood between Lee and Gaara as they watched Ino lose her second chuunin finals match after a good fight. She'd also stood and waited as Ino found out the results, and had shrieked along and hugged her friend back at the good news.

"Sasuke wasn't at this one," Ino noted afterward.

"Yeah," she agreed, attention diverted to where one particular Sand ninja was talking to Hinata. Gaara was getting both taller and heavier, and he loomed over the shyly smiling girl by more than a head. Sakura forced herself to look away, rolled her eyes. "He said something about not wanting to see anyone else make a mockery of the matches, like _some people_ did the last time."

A soft sniff. "You still visit him?"

"Sometimes, when he feels like having a visitor. He's gotten better, some. We even had a nice quiet game of Go the last time I was there." _And the time before that, he accused me of servicing Lee, Gaara, **and** Naruto, all at once._ _Every time I see him he's both more and less like the person I knew before, and I can't quite shake the feeling that he's playing to a crowd. _"The Hokage's thinking of relaxing his guard a little. Maybe even letting him out sometimes."

"Ah."

Against her will, her eyes wandered back to Gaara and Hinata. The Hyuuga nodded, smiling. Gaara nodded back, returning a faint smile of his own, then turned and walked away.

"Admit it, Sakura," Ino murmured.

"_No_," she snarled. _I will not, can not, refuse to! Nothing good can come of it! _She forced her tone to calm. "I'm... just curious. The Hokage likes to know how he's doing with things, too. So I'm keeping track of him for her."

"You're hopeless," her friend grinned.

To their side, Gaara approached Naruto. The blond chuunin was nearly beside himself with anxiety over something. Both of the girls paused to watch as Gaara gave the other boy a patient, much-abused look that stilled his squirming. "She passed. And she said yes."

Naruto whooped, dashed in a small circle, then, noticing Sakura and Ino standing nearby, darted over to them ecstatically. "I'm gonna go out with Hinata! I've got a date with Hinata! I –" He crumbled, bit his fingertips, looked frantically from side to side. "Oh my god what do I- What if she- What-"

"Go ask Jiraiya," Sakura offered.

"Good idea! He knows more about women than _anyone!_"

A dust trail marked the direction he had taken. A distance away, Gaara shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, and wandered off towards an almost identical pair of green-clad individuals further down the street.

"Besides," Sakura said, almost to herself. "Lee's really the important person in his life. He and Naruto are the ones that he really talks to. For the most part, I'm just his pillow. And if he talks to his pillow sometimes, so what, it's still only a pillow. It doesn't mean anything."

Ino rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, but said nothing else.

**ooo**

Spring shifted to summer, summer to fall. Sakura's mother, battling what she thought was a persistent winter cough, found Gaara sitting on the doorstep in the snow and threw a polite tantrum that resulted in him having his own key to their home. Albeit disturbed, Sakura decided that her mother was an unbelievably understanding individual.

On a walk home from a movie one day with Lee, he shyly took her hand. _He's nice to hug,_ she decided in front of her house, cheek contentedly pressed against his chest. _He's warm and kind and perfectly, completely safe. He really is a good person._

With spring, Lee's hand-holding became more frequent, but he never pressed for anything more. Things in Konoha settled into a sort of calm, a kind of routine, to the point that she knew that something was going to happen, _had_ to happen to shatter the calm like a stone thrown into an icy pool. And mid-spring, it did.

The weight of an additional body sinking into and stretching out on the mattress beside her almost didn't bring her up from sleep. What she saw when she rolled over to find out what the disturbance was caused by, though, drove the air from her lungs, rendering her incapable of making a noise even before the hand clamped down over her mouth. Gaara's eyes caught the barest glimmers of light like an animal's, the eerie shine unnerving her as much as the set of his jaw, more so than his presence in her bed.

"Shh. Hush. It's me."

She gulped air, squeaked when he hooked an arm and leg around her to pull her against him. _Don't show fear,_ a still, rational something in her head said. _Whatever you do, don't show fear._

It was like telling a drowning person not to flail.

"They did it," he rasped, voice hoarse, face inches from hers. "They left me, and after they left me they tried to kill me. They all do that, after a while."

"What... What are you talking about?"

His eyes widened to an impossible size, teeth gleaming in what could never be called a smile. All of unholy hell, right in front of her.

_He's going up,_ she realized. _He's going up and there's no one here but me to try and stop him._

_If you try to run, _Inner Sakura whispered, _or try to get away, he'll rip you apart. And he won't even think twice about it, and you know it._

A callused hand crept across her shoulder, covered her throat. It didn't tighten until she grasped at it. His upper lip curled back in disgust. "You'll leave me too, some day. You all will."

_Can't run. Can't hide. Can't avoid it this time. _

But under there, somewhere, was still the lost child that had craved her touch.

She inhaled shakily, forced her hand away from the one slowly cutting off her air supply and out towards him. "No I won't."

The thumb digging into her windpipe pulled away some. She continued, fatalism steadying her voice, her fingers brushing the side of his neck. If he actually meant to kill her, it would be quick. He'd do that much for her, no matter what. "I won't go anywhere if you don't want me to."

His mask cracked. "I can't _believe_ you!"

"Then don't. Then kill me, and understand that I'd leave only because you want me to."

The set of his mouth softened, his expression shifting from bloodlust to confusion to horror. "No!"

Gaara jerked, tried to scramble away from her, but she caught him by his shirt. _Hell with what he does to me, there's no way I'm setting him loose on the streets in this condition! _He shoved at her hopelessly for a few short seconds, trying to untangle himself without hurting her. The sand spiraling up her wrists had her sure for a heartbeat that he meant to start breaking bones in order to get free; then, just as quickly as he'd tried to retreat, he lunged into her arms, wrapping around her so tightly she was sure he'd crack some of her ribs.

She tucked her chin against his forehead, pushed her nose into his hair. His breath dampened the hollow at the base of her throat. _Something still doesn't seem right..._ Then her brain finally processed what her nose was telling her.

_He smells like blood. Lots of blood. Oh no._

_Can you smell the blood on his hands, Sakura?_

_His hands? Try his entire body!_

She shuddered. _What **happened?**_

The arms around her tightened, then loosened, as well as the leg wrapped around hers. His answer made her aware that she had spoken out loud. "I don't know." Fingertips dug into her side, ribs. His hair tickled her face as he shook his head. "I don't know. I. Don't. Know."

Sometime between then and later, between the point that his grip bruised her skin and the point that his fingertips started their usual, gentle, back-and-forth motion against her shoulder, she learned about something bigger than a walking pillow, bigger than comfort. Absolution.

It would be a long night.

The insistent pounding on her front door came with the half-light just before dawn. She untangled herself from Gaara's grasp, meeting his lucid, haunted gaze for just a second. He looked like he'd been beaten, like he'd been hollowed out and left to dry. Before either of their emotions could overcome her, she left her bed to find out who was waiting outside.

Approaching the door, she heard, faintly, a male voice. "But why are you looking for him? And why would he be here?"

Sakura opened the door to Tsunade herself, flanked by Lee and Temari. "Sakura, have you seen Gaara?"

Said Sand ninja appeared behind her, looking more grumpily rumpled than emotionally battered. Lee took in the two of them and his face crumpled as he came to all the wrong conclusions.

Temari stepped forward. "You're okay! Both of you!"

"Yeah," Sakura said. "But do you mind -" _Telling me what the **fuck** just happened last night?_ Inner Sakura yelled."-explaining to, well, both of us, what went wrong where, and when?"

"We think it was an assassination attempt." Temari dug in a pocket, produced a vial. "I found this. It's a sedative."

Gaara snarled, his arms folding. "No wonder things went... They thought drugging me would be a good idea?"

Temari continued, directing her statements to Sakura. "We found what was left of the bodies, but couldn't find him. And from the patches of forest that got wiped out in the distance between Sand and here, we figured he was out of control."

_So, fighting a drug, fighting for his self control, and after fighting a set of nameless someones for his life, he came... to me._ "It's okay, though," she said, but didn't quite believe it.

Tsunade spoke up. "Gaara, do you remember anything about the people that attacked you?"

His hand went to his head in a gesture she hadn't seen in more than a year and a half, eyes squeezing shut, lips peeling back from teeth. "No."

"You, and Sand, have to find out who and why. This could be anything, from a personal grudge to the start of a war."

He nodded and stepped around Sakura; then stopped just outside of the door, turned back. Fingers caught hers, raised her knuckles to his lips as the look in his eyes told her everything and nothing, too much and not nearly enough. "Thank you," he murmured.

Worry. Pain. Gratitude. She couldn't identify anything else.

"Set things right," she whispered in return.

He nodded once, tersely, and released her hand. Temari fell in step beside him as they departed. On some level, Sakura noticed that he'd matched the height of his sister.

_In case you also didn't notice, that wasn't a kid's body you got to wrestle with last night, either,_ Inner Sakura offered. _A little too padded, not as bony._

_I don't need your help,_ Sakura grated back.

Tsunade glanced between her and Lee. "Once you're done, come see me, Sakura."

It seemed that when she wasn't reporting on Sasuke, she was reporting on Gaara. "Yes, Hokage."

The older woman departed silently. Lee bit his lip and finally met Sakura's eyes.

"It's not what you think," she said, lamely.

"What is it, then?" His voice shook a little bit, and she suddenly felt like the most awful person in the village. No, the country.

_Looks like I have to tell him about the lap thing to him after all._

He kept talking. "I mean... You don't look at me like that."

And she knew he was right. But there was a way around that. "You didn't wake me up and try to strangle me in the middle of the night, either."

He looked up, back straightening, eyebrows twitching, anger at someone trying to hurt his Sakura mingling with good humor and a possible form of understanding. "Should I?"

Against her will, she smiled. "Please don't. I've had enough excitement for the rest of the month."

Lee sighed, looked away, then looked back. "But why would he come here, instead of to me, or even to Naruto? Naruto could control him if he had to, you know?"

Sakura mentally ran over a half dozen gentle, clean ways to explain things to Lee. She'd been working on all of them for months. None of them would not upset him, and none of them could explain why she had kept things a secret from everyone but Ino, but she hoped they would do.

"Come on in, Lee. I've got something to talk to you about."

It was awkward, of course, but not as painful as she thought it would be. Lee sat with his elbows on his knees and listened quietly as she stammered out her actions and reasons. Once she was done, he looked up and, surprisingly, smiled.

She still asked. "You're... okay with it, then?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "It's innocent. And if you hadn't, and if he hadn't known he could come to you, then right now either us or Sand would be digging the dead and wounded out of the rubble of the village."

Lee stood, approached her. She took his proffered hands and rose to her feet as well, looking away from him.

"Sakura, I want you to be happy. I... I want you to want me, you know? But above that, I want you to be happy. And if I can be that person that makes you happy, then that's what I want to be."

Her arms encircled him and she was encircled in turn, cheek against his chest, suddenly understanding that he was talking about a lot more than Gaara's unofficial therapy. "Thank you, Lee..."

"When it comes down to it, what you do is up to you. Not me." His lips pressed against her forehead. "It's your choice."

She clenched her fists behind his back and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping with all her heart that she could be good enough to match him, could be a good enough person to deserve someone as good as he was.

**ooo**

The disturbance in Sand had proven to be an attempted uprising, aiming first at taking out Sand's best fighters. The two factions played least-in-sight throughout the summer, with pockets of rebels being destroyed as soon as the intelligence on them was verified. Things might not have lasted too long, might have been quelled quickly, until Sound got involved. In the thick of both information gathering and eradication of all opposition, Gaara was kept away from Konoha for five months straight.

Sometimes Sakura worried – not for his safety in battle, but for his grip on his sanity. In as few as three weeks away, his desperation for the comfort she could offer could be felt, could be tasted and smelled, like the change of seasons.

_Would he keep a hold of himself,_ she wondered, _or would he find someone else willing to sit with him, listen to his stories, play with his hair? Or would he revert to the soulless creature, the half-human he was before he truly knew us?_

She was sent on a bodyguard mission with a team of genin, and so was away from the village when her mother died. The nagging winter cough that had just never gone away had been the symptom of something much more serious, something that overran her organs and made her collapse in the marketplace. By the time Tsunade had reached her, there was nothing that could be done. Sakura had only arrived back just in time for the funeral. The entire village had turned out for the Third Hokage's, but only a handful of people were there for her mother's. Lee and Naruto pressed close to either side, arms around her, as she stood dry-eyed in her misery. Afterwards they hugged her, promising to be there if she needed anything but respecting her request to be alone.

As if in sympathy, the darkened sky opened up on her. She stood, accepting, as the rain washed over and soaked her, finally giving in to the understanding that there was one more person that she would never see, never be able to talk to again. Knowledge of her own mortality, sureness of how poor the attendance at her own funeral would be, and frustration with her own morbidity finally brought tears that she turned up to the frigid precipitation.

When she opened her mouth to catch the droplets, acting out the childish whimsy in defiance of death, in declaration of her own life, she clearly tasted the promise of winter.

Body racked by shivers, she finally began walking to her darkened home. By the time she got there, her hands were numb and shaking so badly she could barely grip the doorknob.

"You're soaked."

Eyeshine gleamed momentarily from a shadowed spot under an overhang before Gaara stepped forward to meet her. His features had been sharpened by war in the same way Sasuke's had been sharpened by captivity. Childish roundness had melted away, replaced with high cheekbones and a strong jaw, black-ringed eyes so intense she could barely meet them. There was a hardness to him, a coldness that hadn't been there the last time she'd seen him, but the fingers that touched her throat were still gentle. "And you're freezing."

She tried to stammer out a reply as he opened the door for her, half-dragging her down the hall by her wrist. Uncomprehending, she watched as he turned the hot water in the shower on full blast, but she figured out what was going on quickly enough when he deposited her, fully clothed, directly under the scalding spray.

She screamed and grabbed for the cold water knob, but he slapped her hands away.

"It's too hot!"

"I don't care!" he snapped.

"But I can't –"

"It only feels that hot because your skin is freezing cold. Stay under it so you warm up. I am _not_ having you get sick."

"I can't. It's too hot. I'll pass out."

He snarled at her but turned the cold water on and up a bit, then snapped the curtain shut. She heard a thunk as the gourd from his back hit the floor.

Though the temperature was still barely bearable, her shuddering eventually began to subside.

"I got here as soon as I could, after I heard." While still rough, his voice carried a hint of regret.

"Thank you," she said. It was enough that he had apparently put effort into keeping track of her. Sakura's extremities were starting to regain feeling, painfully, and the heat and steam from the water was making her dizzy. She leaned against the shower wall, away from the spray. "I just got here a few hours ago myself."

"And gave yourself just enough time to get into trouble, I see. Get back under the water."

"How did you –"

"It sounds different."

"I told you, it's too hot and –"

The snap, the edge to his voice, was new and unwelcome. "_I_ told _you_, I am _not _having you get sick because you're too damn stubborn to listen to me! Now get back under there, before I _make _you."

Arms folded around herself, still shivering from a deep muscle chill not quite reached yet, she glared at him through the gap in the curtain. He glared back and deliberately reached for the buttons of his high-collared shirt.

By the time half of the buttons were unbuttoned, she realized that something was very not right. "W-what are you _doing?_"

"If I have to get in there to put you back under the water, then I'll be damned if I get my clothes soaked too." He turned to shrug the shirt off, folding it neatly and putting it on the edge of the sink.

_Ohmy __–_

The quiet, rational part of her mind said that it was understandable that he was built like that, carrying around all that weight in sand all the time. The rest of her stumbled over her vocabulary, trying to find words for the musculature that rippled across his shoulders, cut almost vertical lines near the small of his back.

_Beautiful._

The glance he threw her over his shoulder was pure challenge.

_He doesn't intend to... He doesn't mean..._

Gaara turned around, leaned against the wall, and started to unwrap the lacings and bandages at his ankles.

_Oh no I think he really does mean –_

_Tummy!_ Inner Sakura shrieked gleefully.

Barefoot, he crossed the floor to stand directly in front of her, expression darkly, wonderfully malevolent. "You have three seconds," he said.

She blinked, mouth gaping.

Not breaking eye contact, he unfastened his pants.

"Two."

_Ohcraphemeansit!_

Muscles stiff with cold and locked up from shivers protested her sudden, violent movement back into the water. A soft snort came from the other side of the shower curtain.

_I can't. I can't. I'm not... I'm scared._

She peeked around the edge of the curtain. Arms folded, Sand's best weapon stared coolly back from the middle of the room.

_But... That look. There's nothing to be scared of, because..._

_Nothing._

_Asexual. Completely uncaring. _

_Friends don't do that, he said. So if he did strip and get in here with me, it would just be two people in the shower, nothing else. **Nothing** else. _

_Even though his proximity would drive you out of your own skin, _Inner Sakura stated.

_Even though. Because he isn't looking at me like I'm a girl, he's looking at me like I'm..._

Sasuke's words, his favorite accusation. "You're annoying."

_Oh my __–_

_Oh no. A pillow, and that's it. Nothing more. Not good enough for anything more. Never good enough for..._

Her breath left her in a rush and she collapsed against the wall of the shower, eyes sliding shut. She almost welcomed the connection of the back of her skull with the hard tile. Physical pain was real, better than –

The curtain was ripped back and hands grabbed her arms, shaking her roughly. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped her protest, clutching at the first stable thing to meet her hands.

Which just happened to be smooth skin, cool to her water-reddened fingers. Looking up, she met Gaara's amused expression.

Unfortunately, the shaking and dramatic temperature changes had taken their toll on her system. With a whimper, her knees gave out. He absorbed her weight with a small chuckle and tugged her out of the shower, an arm around her waist supporting her. The water continued to run. "You okay?"

"I don't know." _I won't cry. I won't. _"I'm dizzy." Her voice betrayed her by cracking on the last statement.

He made an apologetic sound in her ear, ran a hand over the back of her dripping head. "Just tell me if you're going to get sick, all right?"

"You didn't want to get wet, and I'm wet, and now you're gonna be wet, and then you'll be mad at me and_–_"

"Hush."

Deep, sometimes shuddering breaths stabilized her stomach and her equilibrium. He held her until she felt sure enough of herself to pull her head away from his shoulder, then released his grip on her waist a little. But only a little.

Mischief colored his arrogant smirk. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

She stared at him, trying desperately to come up with something insulting to say back. But the words disappeared as his fingertips began to delicately trace her cheek.

"You're warm now."

_Yes, I am. I bet my face is as red as – _

Eyes wide, keeping her gaze the entire time, he leaned forward. The first brush of his lips against hers was whisper-soft, the next a nuzzle. Barely daring to breathe, her eyes flickered shut and she leaned forward, rewarded when he drew her lower lip between his, tasting it carefully before releasing her.

Amusedly arrogant. Amusedly, curiously, tenderly arrogant. She might have hated him then, but she couldn't tell.

He pressed a towel into her hand, smiled at her. "I'll go get you some dry clothes."

He was insane. That was the only explanation. Completely out of his mind. Beyond redemption, beyond anything any of them could ever do for him.

And he was contagious.

_He has to be_, she thought, as she changed into the pajamas he'd brought her behind the shower curtain, as he waited patiently for her in the middle of the bathroom, not bothering to put any of his clothing back on, only re-fastening his pants.

Because she would never rationally agree to sitting quietly with his head in her lap, fingers lightly intertwined with his, after what he'd done. Especially with him half-naked like that.

Because feeling needed shouldn't, couldn't feel this good. So to feel that way meant that she was definitely not in her right mind.

Because no sane person would ever dare to call Sand's best, cruelest, most efficient and most unstable weapon beautiful.

But even if she was insane, she would never go to sleep in his presence again. Even a crazy person couldn't trust him, after all.

And she would definitely never wake to him carrying her to her room, would never forget to protest when he crawled into the bed with her. And because she would never do any of those things, it was obvious that she didn't curl against him, that she didn't enjoy the warmth of his skin against hers. That she didn't close her eyes with pleasure so acute it was almost painful as his fingers explored her face, and that she didn't, on some level, recognize the intensity of the emotion in his expression. And she definitely didn't finally doze off pressed against his body, ear against his chest, as the beating of his heart did absolutely nothing to soothe her to sleep.


	4. 4

(This is only about the fiftieth edit this story's gotten, so I'm adding Bar 9 - Strung Out.)

* * *

She woke to the early morning sunlight, and was content, momentarily, to remain thoughtless and motionless against him. As the previous few days' stress seeped into her semi-conscious mind, though, Sakura grimaced and reluctantly retracted her arm from across his chest. True to form, Gaara watched her stretch, eyes as clear as if the concept of sleep had never crossed his mind, expression somewhere between pensive and pained.

"Are... you all right?" She reached out towards his face.

He caught her hand before it found its destination and nodded. After a second's thought, he placed it on his chest. "You dreamt?"

After a second, she understood. _He can't sleep... so he can't dream. _"I think so. I don't remember much of it, though."

"Tell me?"

She looked away. "Training, I think. We were on the practice field. Us, and Lee and Naruto too." _And I'd turned from your arms to see how much Lee was upset by us being together. And his pain hurt me._

"Dedicated..." The corner of his mouth twitched and he sat up, twisting first one way, then the next, until it sounded like he'd popped every vertebrae at least twice.

_That'd be kind of upsetting, if he wasn't so fun to watch,_ Inner Sakura commented.

To cover up any leer that may have surfaced, she asked him the first thing on her mind. "How do you do it? The not sleeping thing, I mean. How does that work?"

He blinked at her, then sank back into the bed, propping himself up with an elbow. "I don't think about it anymore. At first, it was hard, because I would want to sleep but knew I couldn't. Thinking about how much I wanted it was bad enough. If I thought about how I couldn't..." His hand intercepted hers again, which, acting on orders from Inner Sakura, was reaching for his stomach. "I'd just want it that much more. And thinking about _why_ I couldn't sleep would just be... unpleasant. So I learned not to think about it at all."

_If he stays there for just a few seconds longer, I'll be brave enough to kiss him._ Sakura rubbed her tongue against a molar, the roof of her mouth. _Well, maybe after I brush my teeth I'll be brave enough._

He squeezed her fingers and let go, sliding out from under the blanket that tangled around their legs. "I have to go back today. We're taking the offensive to Sound, for their part in the uprising. Before I leave, though, I need to talk to the Hokage. She knows as well as we do that there's a chance we'll flush Orochimaru out of hiding, and I was allowed to come here under the condition that I ask her if she had any requests for him."

_For the Kazekage to accept let alone seek out Tsunade's input in dealing with Orochimaru speaks well for the alliance. You two did well at helping mend fences, apparently. _"I have to meet Gai-sensei and the others at seven for training, then we have a mission. Nothing major." She sat up and frowned, picked imaginary lint off of the blanket. "Then I have to come home and... start going through things."

He didn't look at her. If anything, he seemed uneasy. "I'm sorry."

She tried to shrug it off. The floor was cold under her bare feet. "It's a part of life. Don't be."

Her funeral dress had dripped a puddle onto the bathroom floor from where she'd hung it over the shower curtain's rod. Sakura reached for her toothbrush, but paused as she touched it. One for her. One for Gaara, that her mother had bought after the second time she'd found him keeping her sleeping daughter company on the living room floor. And one for her mother, who would never be coming back to use it.

_Loss is a part of a ninja's life._

_But that doesn't mean I have to like it, have to breeze on through as if nothing touches me. I just have to keep moving._

Gaara reached under her arm for his shirt, turned his back to her to button it. She shot a confused look in his direction, a look that he didn't see, before turning her attention back to the sink. _Please let me at least get through the basics before I have to deal with anything else._ By the time she was done with her teeth he was done with his sandals, and she left the bathroom to him in order to go in search of her own clothing.

Inner Sakura seemed amused by her dash to dress as neatly yet as quickly as possible. _You haven't been this worried about looking nice for someone since Sasuke was still... well, close to normal._

_Shut up, you. This is different. _

Gaara met her in the hallway, gourd in place. She stopped in front of him, suddenly shy, then looked up with a faint smile. "The shirt... it suits you. I never told you."

He nodded. His hand reached out, then fell back. "I wanted to apologize for last night."

Inner Sakura perked. _For scalding me almost to death? It's about time!_

"It's okay. You had the best intentions in mind, so –"

"I was curious."

She blinked. "What?"

"I was curious. I wanted to know how it felt. I shouldn't have kissed you."

Her mouth opened and shut in wordless denial.

On its second trip away from his body, his hand found hers, pulled it away from her side. "You're... my friend. And I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize that." His head sank. "Forgive me."

_Curious. A toy. Nothing else. _

_I don't **believe** you!_

Pain made her want to lash out. The words were past her lips before she had a chance to think them over. "I would think that you, of all people, would know better than to use someone else to experiment on."

Both hurt and acceptance flickered across his features before fading to the hard mask she had seen the night before. "I won't let it happen again."

**ooo**

The outside air was chilled enough to bite at her lungs. In the street, before they parted, he caught her wrist and spoke carefully, cautiously. "When I return... May I still see you?"

She looked down, then closed her eyes, biting her lip. "Friends do."

"Is it still possible for things to be the same between us?"

_Never. _She shook her head. "I don't know."

He sighed, tugged on her wrist as he stepped to her. She buried her face against his chest as his arms went around her, as her arms went around him.

_An hour ago, things were perfect._ Mentally replaying events, though, she noticed things she should have seen before. His stopping her touch. His turning his back to her to dress. His not looking at her.

_He stayed in my bed, holding onto his doubts... I didn't imagine the way he touched me! I didn't!_

_Sasuke was easier to deal with. Sasuke just ran cold and cold, and cold some more. It was expected to be that way._

_I refuse the truth of this. This is not right. _

Something akin to anger twisted in her stomach.

_Let me just wake up again._

"Give me time," he whispered against her hair.

_This is your decision. You have no right to sound upset by it._

_I should never have let you close to me._

She nodded. He squeezed her, then was gone, marching resolutely towards Tsunade's quarters.

_Breathe, _she told herself. With her exhalation, overtaxed emotion washed away. Cold was good, she decided. Simpler.

Down the street was a familiar face, a face that she hadn't seen outside since her chuunin exam. Flanked by a small thicket of ANBU, Sasuke smirked and jerked his chin upwards, indicating that he recognized her presence.

_What the hell is **he** doing out?_

**ooo**

The day, it seemed, would only keep getting better. If she seemed overly morose, her teammates and instructor relegated it to the funeral the day before.

_Idiot. Idiot. You knew nothing good could come of it. You **let** this happen._

Gai struck a pose. In her current mood, she found it unbearable. Naruto looked no more amused than she. To her right, though, Lee snapped to attention, round eyes wide and gleaming with adoration. "Today's mission, my wonderful young students, may require your finely honed fighting skills!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!"

Naruto grunted. Sakura picked dirt out from under her fingernail.

"And to be warmed up and ready, in this delightfully brisk weather, after we do our exercises we will spar!"

Pushups did nothing to dampen a growing self-resentment. She pushed herself through their run, refusing to let her teammates pull ahead of her. And when the kicks she did against the training post hurt her foot, she gritted her teeth and kicked harder.

_Not good enough._

_Five hundred kicks? I'll do five hundred more after the mission._

Gai watched her from the corner of his eye but said nothing until everyone was through.

"All right! Lee, you're up first to spar!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" His fist hit his chest. Sakura watched him, finding his enthusiasm strangely endearing.

_So dedicated. Weird, sometimes, but dedicated._

She looked back to her instructor to see him glance past her and to Naruto, obviously wanting to put his two best students together. She'd seen it before. Then Gai would work with her, or after Lee and Naruto were done they'd work with her, and none of them would push her in quite the same way they pushed each other.

_Not good enough._

She stepped forward. "I'll go, too."

If Lee sensed the edge to her, he gave no indication as he smiled and settled into his stance. The smile was what did it, she decided later.

_I am not here to be blown off._

After the first flurry of blows, Lee backed away, the smile shifting from one he'd normally give her to one of considering satisfaction.

She sneered, attacked again. Blocking one of his roundhouse kicks with her already battered shin made her hiss. Before he could plant his foot, she was moving in, the knuckles from her fist grazing his hair as he almost put himself in the dust trying to avoid her strike.

An approving noise came from Gai's direction, a muffled cackle from Naruto's.

_Not good enough._

Lee ducked under her heel, then swung. She met his fist with her elbow.

_Don't relegate me to a piece of scenery._

_Not good enough?_

She saw her opening, took it, and connected solidly with Lee's jaw. He staggered back, hand to his face, shock brightening into impressed joy.

Behind her, Naruto gave a low whistle.

_Fuck you, I **am** good enough!_

She didn't turn to look. "Gai-sensei?"

"Yes, Sakura?"

"I need you to make me stronger."

**ooo**

The mission was uneventful, but the promises of accelerated training she had gotten from Gai made it fly by. Determined to not be fazed by her duty, she ripped through the things in the house that no one would return to use. Clothing went into one pile, personal items into another. She threw out the toothbrush. Slowly, though, sentimentality overcame her. She sat on her mother's bed, going through pictures, until darkfall.

_Alive, I must move on._

The night air of the training field was chilly enough to whiten her breath. After the first few hundred kicks, though, she was warm enough to not feel the cold.

_Five hundred, each leg._

By the time she was done, her shins were bleeding. Panting, she glared at the training post as if it had committed a personal offense.

Lee emerged from the shadows. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"That's great! I always thought I'd be the only person out here at this time of night training. Now I don't have to do it alone!" He grinned, flashed her a thumbs-up.

_Why not._

"Lee, you're a really great person. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

He fidgeted. "Other than Gai-sensei? I can't think of anyone off of the top of my head, so I don't know..."

Her smile turned to a scowl as she examined her shin. _That'll look ugly in the morning..._

"Sakura, your legs!"

"Yeah." She shrugged dismissively. _A shower would be nice... but I'm not sure that I want to get back in there yet._ "I guess it happens."

Lee knelt beside her, pulling a roll of bandages from a pocket.

She poked at his shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. After all, I didn't try to bandage your face this morning!"

He grinned up at her. "No, you didn't."

"I'll go get it cleaned up in a little bit. Like I said, don't worry about it."

"But –"

"Don't worry about it."

He stood. "If you insist."

_This has been way too long of a day._

Sakura looked down, sighed.

"Are you all right?"

Her head shook. _No._

Arms went around her shoulders, pulling her in to a green surface that smelled like dust and the results of hard work, that smelled purely of Lee.

_No blood on this one._

"Sakura... Is there anything I can do to help?"

_Nothing lost._

_It's my choice, he said. He wants me to want him, he said. I'd love to. I'd love to be able to love him._

She searched his expression before standing on her toes to press her lips against his.

_It's not the same._

His mouth opened against hers with all of the shaky, exuberant grace of a month-old puppy.

_It won't be the same._

She kissed him back as his hand clenched against her shoulder, as the other tangled in her hair.

_But it will be better. It has to be._

Because she didn't think she could feel any worse.

**ooo**

Pushing herself gave her an outlet for the sadness and anger that burned bright for the next few days. Bettering herself made her feel better about herself. Her shins scabbed and peeled, but a near-empty jar of medicinal cream she found in her mother's room insured that she didn't scar. Impressed by her determination, Gai did indeed throw her training into high gear. Soon, her hands needed the same treatment. Lee was there to bandage her carefully, devotedly, pressing lips against her fingertips.

At Gai's suggestion, Sakura started running in the mornings. She was surprised, but not overtly so, when Naruto started showing up to run with her. He even gave her a jar of Hinata's medical cream as they walked through the street to cool down.

"Thanks, Naruto."

"Thank Hinata next time you see her. She makes this stuff all the time. I think she thinks I'm accident-prone."

Sakura laughed, stretched to try and relieve the stitch in her side. "How are you guys doing, anyway?"

"Great. It's actually kinda scary, you know?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, I think this is it."

"_That_ doesn't sound too great."

His hand went to the back of his head and he grinned self-consciously. "No, really. I think I'm in love."

She stopped short, blinked at him. _Did he just say –_

"It's kinda weird. I wasn't sure about her when I made Gaara ask her to go out with me, but I figured I had nothing to lose. I mean, you were seeing Lee and all. Plus you're you, and you're kinda mean."

The jar in her hand made a satisfying _thunk_ as it connected with his skull.

"See what I mean?"

She stopped twitching, jaw unclenching as she grinned back into laughing blue eyes.

"But... How do you know, Naruto?"

He was quiet for a moment, thinking. "I don't, really. But she's great to be around. Comfortable, you know? Like I could tell her anything. She smells great. She cooks ramen for me. We can talk, we can be quiet, it doesn't matter." A grin he had to have picked up from Jiraya spread across his face. "And you wouldn't believe this thing she can do with her –"

_**Thunk!**_

_Damn it, I think I cracked the jar that time. No, that's just a blond hair._

From the dirt at her feet, Naruto gave an odd whine. She reached down and grabbed his jacket to help haul him to his feet.

"Taken down by her, now, Naruto? You're even more worthless than I thought."

Naruto shook his head to clear it, then glared. "They left the cage door open, Sasuke?"

Sasuke smirked at them, pulling a hand from his pocket to gesture to the five ANBU around him. "My cage moves now. As long as I'm a good boy, I can have some time to walk outside."

"Don't know why they'd do that."

"I'm stabilizing, being a better person. Stuff like that. Ask Tsunade."

"I'll be sure to ask her what the hell she was thinking."

Sasuke gave a strange, low chuckle, then turned to her. "Sakura. You didn't come and talk to me the last time I asked."

She gritted her teeth, hand clenching around the jar. "The time I talked to you before that, you saw fit to call me a whore. Again. I got tired of it."

He smiled, a corner of his mouth lifting away from his teeth. "It's because you're more interesting when you're angry. When you're not, you're just... annoying."

_Cold is good. Simple. _"Then don't talk to me. Spare us both the annoyance."

"But you're interesting to... observe. I believe I saw you out here about a week and a half ago. _That_ was definitely interesting."

Naruto looked from her whitening face back to Sasuke's smirk. "What are you talking about?"

"Our dear friend's love interest."

"He's not my love interest," she whispered. "He's not my anything."

"Really?" During her visits with him, Sasuke had learned how to use his presence and proximity to intimidate her. He did that now, moving in until she stepped away from him. "Do you treat all of the men around you so tenderly?" His voice dropped to a mock-seductive whisper, full Sharingan focused on her face. "Would you treat me that way?"

His intense expression shattered to shock as Naruto grabbed him by the collar and slung him away from her. The blond half-crouched in front of her, snarling. "I don't know what's going on, and I don't care what you think you saw, but don't talk to Sakura like that!"

"Or what, you and her demon-bearing boyfriend will come and get me?" Sasuke sniffed. "Maybe you would. You are two of a kind, after all."

_Two of a huh? _"Naruto, what –"

"Don't worry about it," he growled. Then, to Sasuke: "We're going now."

"I won't stop you."

Aggression radiated from Naruto as they walked, so much that she almost felt it was visible. He snarled. "What was Old Lady Tsunade thinking, letting him out! What if he gets away?"

"Then... he'll probably try to go to Orochimaru again."

"And we'll have to chase him down again! And the way things are out there now, with Sand and Sound at war..." He blinked, straightened. "They're after Orochimaru too, huh? Sand is."

"Yeah. Gaara said they expect to find him at some point." While in her bed, their hands together, his scent on her skin while she watched him and smiled and never saw it coming.

She bit her lip.

Naruto didn't notice. "They expect... They expect him to bolt. The Fifth expects Sasuke to bolt and lead everyone straight to Orochimaru."

"And seeing how he is, how he's been, it can't be that long before he does." She shook her head. _Rehabilitation? He couldn't be rehabilitated since he didn't want to change. And at some level, I knew this also._

"But then whoever finds them will have to deal with them both, and Kabuto, too."

She cringed, then cringed more at his next statement.

"What was that about you and Gaara?"

She worded the truth as carefully as possible, trying her hardest to not let it barb her in the telling. "He came in after the funeral and spent the night over. He hugged me goodbye, and Sasuke saw it."

The blue eyes that met hers were cool, free of speculation, but she saw that he knew something else had happened. "And?"

Inner Sakura stormed. _You are not going to get relationship advice from Naruto! You are **not!** I forbid it!_

_Naruto's in a functional, stable relationship,_ she replied._ Naruto obviously knows something about how things work that I don't. So shove it._

_I don't believe I'm doing this, though._

"We have a bit of time before we have to meet Gai and Lee... How about I try to explain things over breakfast?"


	5. 5

Looks like the manga had to go in a different direction than mine... Meh.  
Anyway! I fully intend to finish this thing. I refuse to be one of those people that gets to one certain main goal and gives up the story.

Music: VNV Nation – Arclight

* * *

_I **told** you,_ Inner Sakura said.

_Shut up. Just because he doesn't have any experience with this kind of thing doesn't mean he won't come up with something insightful. Sometime. Maybe._

Naruto looked like he was pondering something insightful at that very moment. Settling an elbow on the counter at his favorite ramen shop, his forehead wrinkled, eyes scrunched, and lower lip stuck out. He scratched his chin with a thoughtful "Hmm." Then he turned to her. "Sakura..."

"Yeah?"

"You're weird."

"Oooh!"

He dodged a punch that, had it connected, probably would have broken his jaw.

"Hey! You told me to be honest!"

"In a helpful way, you short little... you... Gah!"

_At least he's easier to hit than Lee._

_At least you two will be warmed up for sparring later on, too, _Inner Sakura added.

On their walk to the training area, Naruto did indeed come up with something insightful.

"Hey, hey, why didn't you tell a girl about this? Like Ino?"

"Because I already know what Ino would have said. She would have told me I was crazy for the first part, told me that Gaara was a jackass for the second part, and finally told me to stick with Lee because he's the good guy."

"Well . . . Do you _want_ to stick with Lee?"

_See,_ she told Inner Sakura. _He can make me think, so it's worth it. _

_I refuse to comment,_ was the reply.

"Lee's a great guy, and he deserves to be happy."

"You didn't answer the question."

The corner of her mouth twitched up as she watched the ground in front of her. "Yeah, I guess I didn't."

"Well?"

"I don't know."

"And... You know, it's really weird to talk about Gaara having any kind of love life, let alone with you, let alone it _involving_ you."

"Tell me about it," she grumbled.

"But he said he just wants to be friends with you."

"Yeah."

"But you... You know, this really _is_ weird."

"You told me that already," she growled.

"You still like him."

The growl, and her slouch, both deepened. "Unfortunately."

"Well... um. Maybe this'll work. Good points on his side, versus Lee."

_He's fucking **hot**,_ Inner Sakura cheered. _Those hands... That tummy... His voice... And you know how when he gets kinda pissed but still amused, he gets that look... You know, **that** one. Woo, I need a cold shower!_

Sakura blushed. _Something clean, you._

_Damn!_

"Well, it seems like he tries to put my best interests in mind. Even if he isn't very good about doing it nicely. It's kind of a different level than Lee helping bandage my knuckles last week, too. Not physical courtesy so much as... I don't know."

"Eh, it's Gaara. We'll probably need more than a few years to work on 'nice.' Anything else?"

Her purely mental counterpart picked up again. _I like to look at him, how's that for clean?_

_No!_

_You're no fun at all, _Inner Sakura grumped.

"He's honest – well, Lee is too. He apologizes after he upsets me, or after that time he popped up and had me thinking he was going to kill me a few months ago. Lee... doesn't really do anything upsetting."

"At all?"

"No, actually. Why do you ask?"

Naruto blinked. "Because _everyone_ does _something_ upsetting. If they don't, they have to be holding something back."

_Lee, holding back?_

_I never thought of that. What if he was so determined to be accepted that he's not really being himself?_

_Well... _"The posing and blatant devotion to Gai-sensei is kind of upsetting, I guess."

"You think so? I think it's kinda funny, most of the time."

_So do I... _"The eyebrows."

Naruto choked, laughed. "Don't tell me you're still stuck on the eyebrows!"

"If you knock him out, I'll get some scissors and we can trim them."

She hadn't seen an expression that evil on Naruto's face since their failed Operation De-mask Kakashi. "Really?"

**ooo**

"Man, that's _weird._"

Sakura gaped at their handiwork, the late afternoon sun distinctly illuminating two careful arches where what looked like two blocky caterpillars once were. "Who knew?"

"Under all that fluff, there's a real person!" Naruto jumped up from beside their prone teammate and danced around, cackling. "Wait 'til Gai sees this!"

Lee stirred, groaned.

Inner Sakura stirred also. _You two knocked him out... So you could change him. Naruto did it because he thought it was funny. But you did it because you weren't happy with him before. What about now?_

She stood. "Naruto, let's go before he wakes up."

"Great idea! That way it'll be a surprise for him! And if he doesn't like it, we won't be in trouble!"

"Yeah."

_You're a horrible person,_ Inner Sakura gloated. _You really **don't** deserve someone like him._

_I didn't ask you._

_Don't take that tone with me, _was the replied threat,_ or I'll replay how Gaara tasted on your lips until you blush for the rest of the day._

_It's only that way because he was my first kiss._

_Keep telling yourself that._

**ooo**

Lee didn't come out of hiding for two days, even sending Gai away with an incoherent comment about getting used to something he couldn't fix. Sakura and Naruto helped their instructor speculate on what could cause their friend to miss training, succeeding in working Gai up to the point that he broke down Lee's door to find out if he really _had _been overrun by a flood of Shino's escaped insects.

Lee blinked at him, at the pair behind him, and smiled. "Hey, guys. I was just about to come looking for you."

Gai's bellow was deafening. **_"Lee!"_**

"Gai-sensei?"

"You're all right! You're... Lee! You're even more beautiful than you were before!"

"Gai-sensei!"

Bawling, the two fell into each other's arms. Sakura and Naruto exchanged a look.

"Hey," Naruto said. "Think we should go now?"

"Yeah." She looked one last look at the twitching, blubbering green mass and shook her head. "Let's run more laps."

"Let's."

**ooo**

Weeks passed. Lee's eyebrows tried to reclaim their normal shape, but he trimmed them down again.

_You might have made him vain,_ Inner Sakura commented.

_Gai approved, and that's why, _she responded.

_You don't mind kissing him as much now._

_I didn't mind to begin with._

_Which is why you didn't do it a second time for a week, and that's only when he initiated things. _

_I was thinking._

_Having a crisis or two, you mean. _

_I want to make it work. Can I make it work?_

_You've been asking yourself that every morning for the past few weeks now._

_I want to be with him._

_Which one?_

Sakura shook her head. Arguing with herself... she was going as crazy as –

_He's contagious, you said._

_Shut **up!**_

Lee smiled and sat beside her at the edge of the training field, fingers seeking hers. She smiled back, sighed quietly.

_He's comfortable to be around. _

_Comfort isn't everything._

"Sakura?"

"Hm?"

"Do I make you happy?"

The response was automatic. "Of course." She smiled faintly at him. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to be sure."

She shifted, confused. "Well, yeah."

"Why?"

_The hell?_ "That's like asking you why you like me, Lee."

"Well, that's simple. You're a girl. You squish." He let go of her hand and poked her side for emphasis.

Sakura dropped an elbow on his hand, feigning outrage. "There's plenty of other girls that go squish out there."

He smiled shyly. "Yeah, but you're you." Reaching up, he tucked a stray pink strand behind her ear. "Your hair, and eyes, and your attitude, and your smile, and the way you hit Naruto, and how you get your back up when something upsets you. Things like that. That's why."

She smiled, looked away. Lee was silent for long enough for her to realize that it was her turn.

"You've got a good heart," she tried. "You're a kind person, a forgiving person. You're noble in that way. And you're fun to laugh with, and beat up training posts with at night."

When she looked at him, he was smiling, so she continued. "You're accepting, and understanding. You're a wonderful guy, you know?"

"You really think so?"

"Yeah. You're a great friend."

_Shit._

"And... and that's great too, you know?"

_That was an awful cover,_ Inner Sakura mused.

Lee gave no outward indication that he'd caught the slip, but he didn't look at her either. An arm went around her shoulders hesitantly.

"You know I just want you to be happy, Sakura."

"And I want to make you happy. You deserve to be happy."

"You do too, though." He finally turned back to her. "Gai-sensei said that if you're interested, he can find some training weights for you, too. Not ones as heavy as mine, of course, but enough to make your workouts a bit harder."

"I'd like that, I think."

"You'll be more sore than you know for the longest time."

"That's okay."

_Friends._

_I said that. _

_And I meant it._

_Don't you dare kiss him goodnight,_ Inner Sakura snarled.

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she said.

_If I don't, I have to explain why, and I can't. Not now._

_He won't ask. He's understanding, remember?_

_But I'll feel bad for letting him down._

_Like leading him on is any better? You think of him as a friend. A friend. Friend. Don't you dare fucking do it._

Lee smiled at her, then looked confused as she covered his new eyebrows with one hand. "They're different," she shrugged.

"You liked them before?"

"I don't know. They seemed more like you. But maybe I just have to get used to seeing you with these, you know?"

_If he's your friend, that's why kissing him was like that. It's kissing a friend. Don't you fucking –_

"Oh." His hand ran past her ear to cup the back of her head, draw her in.

_Oh hell no if he's your friend and Naruto's your friend then kissing him would be what it feels like to be –_

_**Shut up!**_

His lips were wet, gentle, but brief.

_Kissing Naruto kissing Naruto kissing Naruto**Ohshiteeewww**! _

Inner Sakura finished the mental shriek, gave a few spasmodic twitches, and collapsed.

For once, Sakura completely agreed with her. _This is not good..._

**ooo**

Her first day of training with weighted arms and legs was awkward, as she tried to move suddenly heavier limbs at the usual speed, but wasn't that bad. The next day, though, she was less than happy with herself.

At their normal meeting place for their morning run, Naruto grinned at her expression. "You look like you don't like the weight training idea anymore."

"I still like the idea of the end results." She grimaced. "It would be easier if I couldn't feel my legs anymore, though."

"If it works out for you, and you don't die, maybe I'll try them too."

"As long as you remember that I'll make you as miserable about it as you make me."

Naruto took the hint and tried to sound less gleeful. "At least you only have to wear them while you're training?"

"To think that I was upset by that, at first."

"Heh. Think you can keep up?"

"Of course."

They passed Sasuke and his guard occasionally, but said nothing to him, receiving smirks in return for their silence.

Eventually, the newness of the weights became less of a hassle, and she found herself moving at closer to her old speed. Inspired by her progress, Gai had them try out new, horrible workouts.

"Lee, get in a pushup position. Now, Naruto, get in a pushup position at a right angle to Lee, with your shins across Lee's shoulders, so he's holding your feet off the ground. Sakura, you do the same with Naruto. No, so you're parallel to Lee, just facing the opposite direction."

Her instructor's shins settled across her shoulders, Lee's across his. By the time everyone was properly arranged, they had formed a square.

"Ready? Great! For starters, one hundred pushups!"

By the end of that day, Gai was the only one that seemed unfazed, and she was pretty sure he was faking. But she soaked herself in the bathtub that night until she was sure the hot water had done all it could, and was out to meet an also unhappy Naruto for their run the next day.

"Do you think this is what it feels like to get old?" he asked.

"I really hope not."

Gai was ready for them with something else awful. "Three-point pushups! Hands together, do a pushup. Then hands shoulder width apart, another pushup. Then hands double shoulder width, another pushup. That's one. Do two hundred!"

Lee walked away from that day as if nothing of any consequence had happened. Sakura and Naruto staggered after him, glaring.

"I say we knock him out again, but shave his head this time," Naruto growled quietly.

The mental picture made her cringe. "Nooo!"

Lee turned back to them, moving entirely too fluidly for her complaining joints and muscles to comprehend. "Sakura, did you have any plans for tonight?"

If she shut him down with honesty, it wouldn't make her feel bad. "Just to go home, probably take another bath, and hope I can move in the morning."

He smiled and nodded at her as he approached, hands reaching for hers. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah." She saw him start to lean in and shifted to the side so his lips hit her cheek, then returned the gesture as if she thought that's what he intended.

_Pretend he doesn't look confused. He'll be gone soon enough._

Lee blinked at her, then turned to Naruto. "See you tomorrow, too."

"Later, Lee."

Once the green outfit was out of sight, Naruto turned to her slowly and carefully, trying not to wrench anything. "You two are..."

She mentally cringed. "I think of him as a friend. I just... haven't figured out how to tell him yet."

"Ehh. It's not nice to lead him on, you know?"

"I'm trying."

Naruto sighed. "Does the bath thing help at all?"

"I don't know. I think it does, though."

"I may need one, then."

**ooo**

Daybreak found the muscles in her back and arms locked so tightly she was almost unable to move.

_If I don't go, I won't progress._

_There's Sasuke to think about, too. Who's to say that, if he decides to run to Orochimaru again, he won't stop off first and try to take a few troublesome people out before he leaves?_

_I have to be able to hold my own. And to do that, I have to be stronger._

She strapped her weights on and headed out to meet Naruto.

For the first time, the blond was late. He finally jogged up to her, talking before she could even start to ask.

"Gaara's back. He's meeting with the Fifth right now."

"What happened?"

"Sand thinks they're closing in on Orochimaru. Gaara killed Kabuto last night."

_The one that helped us with the first chuunin exam. The one that turned on all of us._ "What's that got to do with the Hokage? They want to know if she has any other special requests?"

"They already know what she would like done. He's here to help trail Sasuke. With Kabuto dead and Sound mostly demolished, in all likelihood, Orochimaru's gonna try to call him in any day now. And Sand would like one of their guys on the team that will follow him from here."

"So they really do intend to follow him to Orochimaru."

"And keep Orochimaru from stealing his body, too. By all accounts Sand's gotten, he's about due for another. And if he gets the Sharingan..."

"Yeah." _All of unholy hell would pale in comparison._

"Sakura?"

"Yeah?"

"Gaara's coming to train with us after he's done with the meeting. He shouldn't get seen by Sasuke while he's on his walk this afternoon, because... well, it would be bad, you know? And we all understand that. And Old Lady Tsunade will want him to stay somewhat close, and somewhere he can be found as soon as possible. Somewhere he won't terrify everyone around him. And that's reasonable too. I'd agree with that idea."

_What's he getting at?_

"So after training he's going to go home with you."

_Uh-oh. _"Me?"

"Well, it's the logical choice. And that's where he usually goes, anyway." Naruto continued as they started their run. "He wanted me to tell you, but to tell you that he'd change things if you wanted. If it imposed too much, he said."

_He doesn't know if you're still upset with him. He's still thinking of your happiness. _

_He's still damned scary at times. But there's no point in breaking habit now._

"If you want, though, I'll come too. So it's not too weird."

_That would make things easier, give me a human buffer. Make it not as tense to be around him, because I know that things will be tense. For at least the first while._ She gave him her most grateful smile. "Thanks, Naruto. I'd be glad to have you come have dinner with us."

**ooo**

Gaara wasn't long after them to the practice field. He went up to Lee first, forehead wrinkling in puzzlement, and grabbed the other boy's face in his hands. "What happened to _you?_"

"I'm trying out a new look," Lee grinned.

"It's _weird._"

"Who asked you, anyway?" Cheeks squished by the other's grip, Lee pressed his tongue between his lips and blew.

Gaara snorted before letting go and turning to them. "Hey, guys."

"Hey."

"Hi."

Green eyes met hers. "About tonight..."

"It's okay," she heard herself say. "I don't see why not."

She saw the smallest touch of relief in his faint smile. "Thank you." Before anyone could ask any questions, he faced Gai. "Did Naruto tell you anything yet?"

"He just got here, less than a minute before you."

"All right. Orochimaru is on the run. We at Sand can't find him, but we believe Sasuke will, and that Sasuke will try to reach him within the next few days. I'm Sand's contribution to the team that will track him."

"The rest of the team?"

"At least two members that haven't been decided yet, and them." He gestured to the three around him.

Lee's jaw dropped a fraction of a second before Gai's. Sakura almost choked. The word came out of three throats at the same time. "What?"

Naruto cackled.

Gaara gave them all a look of exasperation bordering on annoyance. "It's logical. Who else do I work well with from this village? Who else do I even get along with for any length of time?"

Lee grinned. "Well, if you put it that way!"

Gai frowned. "The others?"

"To relay positions. Last time Sasuke took off, he went in so much of a straight line from Konoha towards Orochimaru's location that it was almost uncanny. And we can't have just a handful of chuunin taking on Orochimaru and Sasuke, so all of Sand's available forces will circle and convene on his position."

Worry gave Sakura words. "It'll take Sand's forces more than a few seconds to reach us once we find them, though."

"Which is why the team is as it is. If it comes down to it, my defense can keep Orochimaru from killing everyone in the time it takes Naruto to summon the Gamabunta. Anyone can see that thing from more than a kilometer away. With that, and all of us, we should be able to keep them occupied for long enough for the rest of the forces to arrive."

"And then?" As Gai's jaw set and shoulders flexed, Sakura decided that he looked impressive after all.

"The Fifth Hokage requested that I find out how long it took the Third to die. She wishes for us to take at least that long with whatever we do to him, as long as the whatever in question is both bloody and incredibly painful."

Gai's eyes closed as he nodded slowly. "Good."

The drills they worked on that day were blatantly for assassination – takedowns involving a kunai, involving fast, hard strikes to the heart, throat, femoral and brachial arteries, involving hitting and getting away as quickly as possible. She got the impression that Gai expected the techniques to be of use in the near future.

Dusk found them weary, yet more sure of themselves.

Naruto grinned, stretched, then grimaced. "That wasn't too fun."

"You're telling me," Sakura commiserated. "I almost couldn't get out of bed this morning."

Gaara shot her a curious expression.

"Upper body workouts," she said.

"You're hurt?"

"Just sore. It doesn't matter."

He gave her a look that said she knew better than to say that to him.

Naruto stepped between them. "Guys? Dinner?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

"Dinner?" asked Lee.

_Shit._ She tried to shrug it off. "A friendly thing. No big deal. Me and them."

"Sakura, can I talk to you for a minute?"

_Aww, hell. _"Sure, Lee."

Apparently Lee's understanding only ran so far. "What's going on?"

She glanced over to where Naruto was talking animatedly to Gaara. From the wide sweep of the shorter boy's arms, she guessed it was about something big. "Nothing's going on."

He shook his head, agitated. "Something's wrong. You don't treat me the same, act the same around me. You have to tell me. Do you still care?"

_This is gonna suck._ "Yes, I still care about you. I always have."

"As what."

_Oh no. _

"As... I don't know."

"That's a cop-out and you know it."

_Honesty, Sakura, honesty. And if he's as good a person as you believe him to be, he'll appreciate it. _

"I know... I definitely care about you as a friend. Other than that, I don't know."

Lee bit his lip, set his jaw. "You could have told me."

"I didn't know how. And I'm still not sure what's going on, so I don't know how I even want things to be."

_Kissing Naruto,_ Inner Sakura hissed.

He sighed, slumped. "You like someone else, don't you."

"I don't know."

"It's not Naruto, because you've always thought of him as a brother, so... Oh, no."

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"You always looked at him differently than you did me."

"He doesn't like me like that."

"He's watching you now."

She glanced over. Gaara blinked, then looked back to Naruto.

"That doesn't mean anything."

"It does when he's been doing it for most of the day. Now it makes sense."

The ground was giving out from under her. "Lee, honestly, I don't know what's going on right now. With anything."

"Fair enough." He touched her wrist with a finger. "Let me be the first to know when you figure things out."

She exhaled, looked at the ground in front of her toes as she nodded. "I can do that."

_It can't be that hard._

He lifted her hand to his lips. "Please do."

"I promise."

**ooo**

On their walk to her home, she sighed, then spoke. "Remember when things were easier, when we were younger?"

Gaara's expression was thoughtfully blank. Naruto, though, looked at her like she had grown horns. "Easier? Are you kidding? I couldn't do a technique as simple as a shadow clone, you were hung up on Sasuke and trying to throttle Ino for his attention, and Spanky here was on a sociopathic blitz where he tried to kill everyone and anyone that came anywhere near him!"

Said Sand-Spanky's hand connected with the back of Naruto's head.

"See? Two and a half years ago he would have tried to kill me for that."

Gaara smiled. She chuckled. "Good point."

When she glanced over at Gaara, he looked away.

_When it comes down to it, he still doesn't know how to deal with people properly._

_He just wants to know if I'm still upset with him._

_I should be. But... I think I'm burnt out. Heh._

She reached out towards his hand. "Friends, still?"

His fingers caught hers, squeezed. "If you'll have me."

**ooo**

Dinner became an intricate dance. She and Gaara spun around each other en route from the kitchen to the extension of the living room that was her dining area, each sliding out of the other's way in an attempt to avoid contact. She blushed and looked away when he caught her watching him. He pretended to be absorbed in something else when she caught him looking at her.

Observing them, Naruto groaned. "You two are hopeless, you know that?"

Gaara answered first, cautiously. "What are you talking about?"

"You're just... I mean, if you're gonna do... Gah! Just hurry up and make out already. That'll solve things."

She yelped. "What?"

"It worked for me and Hinata. She stopped stuttering." Naruto paused, then smirked. "Well, once she was able to start talking again..."

_My ears are going to catch on fire._

To her side, Gaara's jawline seemed a little too tense. He glanced over, met her eye, and they both looked away.

_Is he..._

When she looked back, he was watching her again.

_I can't. I don't want to get hurt again._

_And I promised Lee I'd tell him first._

Naruto sighed and dug into his dinner. After a moment, they did the same. For a while, things weren't as stressful. Naruto tried to crack a few jokes, but they fell flat, which in and of itself was funny. Gaara delicately answered questions about how his battles had gone, having learned a while before that full details tended to spoil peoples' appetites. And she smiled, accepted compliments on her meal, and tried to ignore the speculative glances she kept getting from both of them.

_He **can't **take interaction advice from Naruto!_

_He takes his phrases, his habits, then mimes them for you,_ Inner Sakura noted._ And don't forget how you were ready to accept Naruto's advice, either!_

Scowling, Sakura decided that she didn't want any more help from that quarter, but Inner Sakura popped up with another gem anyway. _I wonder how hard he'd be to seduce._

_No!_ _I can't. I promised._

_And I don't know why the hell you would do something like that,_ Inner Sakura griped.

_I'm scared of getting hurt again, though._

_Forget your fear._

When passing behind her after taking a dish to the kitchen, Gaara brushed his hand across the small of her back. She gaped, then whirled on him, voice low to not alert Naruto. "What are you doing?"

He gave her his best innocent look. "Cleaning."

"No, I mean –"

Callused fingertips brushed her hair back from her face, the tender gesture making something clench in her stomach. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter."

Hearing her own words thrown back in her face did nothing for a temper already wearing thin.

"Your back still hurts?"

"Yeah, but –"

"I can help."

Naruto grinned at them from the kitchen doorway. "That doesn't work for this kind of backache. I tried."

Gaara gave him a confused look, forehead wrinkling. "A backrub wouldn't work?"

"Oh, a backrub! Well, I don't know. You could try and find out?"

_On second thought, maybe he'll try to seduce you first,_ Inner Sakura grinned.

"I don't want one."

He huffed, and she watched with dismay as his expression settled into the no-nonsense one she'd seen when he chased Lee down with a towel for his burned hand, when he'd thrown her into a scalding hot shower. "You're going to be on my team when Sasuke runs. I need you in good shape for that. You won't be in good shape or move as well as you may need to if you're all cramped up from pushing yourself too hard."

"I was not pushing myself too hard!"

"You should build up strength gradually. You_ know _this. Working until you completely destroy yourself may seem like it gets you somewhere faster, but when you have other things you have to do, or may have to do – which, in a ninja village, you _always_ will have those things to do – you have to look out for yourself. Whose bright idea was it for you to do this anyway?"

She glared evilly.

"Oh." He deflated, looked almost like he regretted the statement.

From the sink, Naruto laughed. "Hey, I think you pissed her off before. She came in and beat the shit out of Lee, and then demanded that Gai-sensei train her harder."

"Really?" Fingers went out to hers.

She tugged her hand back. "Yeah."

If Naruto didn't lose that grin, she was going to smack him. "Hey, Sakura, tell you what. I do your dishes, and if he's any good with the backrub thing then I might need one after you're done, ok?"

_I won't._

A corner of Gaara's mouth twitched upwards. "Lay down."

_That! That's the look! _Inner Sakura spun herself in circles, cackling rabidly.

She shook her head. _No._

He mouthed the words _I'll make you._

She glared, somewhere between angry and afraid. And entirely too eager.

_It won't be so bad._

_It's just... If he does it for Naruto too, it's ok._

_Right?_

Watching him cautiously, she lowered herself to an open area of the floor. He straddled her hips, touched her shoulder. "About there?"

"Most of it, actually, but that's as good a place as any to start."

Fingers dug into her flesh, and she yelped. "Ow!"

"Shh. It'll get better."

Another cackle from the kitchen. "That's what –"

"Shut _up,_ Naruto!" she snapped.

If she stayed angry at them, it wasn't so bad.

If she relaxed, things went a little easier, and she could pretend that Gaara's weight on her wasn't so distracting.

"Ow, there."

Entirely too capable hands obliged.

Naruto had to have finished the dishes by then, but he wasn't coming out of the kitchen.

After a while, things changed. Half asleep, she suddenly noticed the hands on her back making a descent, sliding along her sides, before running back up along her spine to work on her other shoulder.

_That was nice... Wait, what was that?_

He unfolded one of her arms from where it supported her head and straightened it out, leaning over her to smooth the muscles there. His fingers linked with hers briefly; then he re-folded her arm and repeated the process with the other one.

She looked up from the corner of her eye to note his strange expression. He glanced down at her and smiled slightly, lips parted, and brushed fingers over her cheek before sitting up and going back to work on a stubborn knot near the middle of her spine.

She was sure when he did it again, running a hand along her hip before returning to a spot halfway under her shoulder blade.

_I can't._

Caress down. Trace up. Fingers gently soothing a tight muscle in her neck she hadn't noticed before.

_I promised._

He leaned forward again to work thumbs into her forearm, the brush of his shirt against her back and the close sound of his breathing disturbing her more than a little.

_But if I sit up now, then he'll kiss me._

He went over her hips again, then along the sides of her waist, squeezing gently inward.

_But I can't._

Her right hand moved out from under her head, planted by her side.

_I can't. _

She couldn't stop thinking about how much better his hands would feel on her skin instead of the fabric of her dress.

_Just a second. And he won't, and I'll feel silly, and then I'll let Naruto have him._

She pushed, raising her upper body off of the floor, turning halfway to him.

_See, nothing –_

Fingers went over her cheek, slid down to caress her throat. His breath was warm on her face for only a second before his mouth covered hers. Lips moved, gently seeking, and she opened for him.

_This is right. Dreadfully, terribly right. This is what I've been missing. _

_Forget your fear._

She whimpered. Gaara pulled back, smiled, then moved in again. This time the kiss was different, hungrier, more vicious, nothing at all like Lee's softness. And she felt herself responding in kind.

_What am I doing?_

From off to the side, Naruto cleared his throat. Guiltily, they broke, looked at him.

"I changed my mind, I don't want that kind of backrub." He smiled kindly, understandingly. "Thanks for the dinner, guys, but I think it's about time for me to get home."

Halfway out of the door he stopped, grinning. "And don't do anything you'll hate yourselves for in the morning!"

A hand ran up and down her spine contentedly as the door slammed. "He's really weird."

She choked.

Fingertips pressed into her back again. "Shh. I'm not done yet."


	6. 6

Freud is my Daddy. Vanya-beta-Rock on, yay stuff, may tweak. The given.

* * *

Part of her wanted to panic. The other part mused on about how much better she'd feel once the backrub was done.

The first part insisted that she make the backrub done, now.

_What have I done what am I doing oh shit I'm alone in here with him now and apparently that friend thing we talked about, that friend thing I've been thinking about all day, that friend thing that upset me to the point that I went after Lee... That apparently went straight out the window._

_Lee. What do I do about Lee._

"Relax," Gaara murmured, shifting his weight against her.

_Damned Sand brat. Damned annoying, horrible, demanding, spoiled Sand brat._

"I am," she tried to growl. It came out closer to a whimper.

His hand ran up into her hair, brushed it away from the side of her neck. "No you're not."

"I'm trying." _That was a little closer to honest._

"You're still too tight."

Inner Sakura exploded out of hiding, eyes popping. _What? Whoa!_

Sakura started to squirm. "I'm fine, really."

"No, you're not. If I let you up now, you'll only feel better for a little while. If you let me finish, then you'll just be a little sore tomorrow, but all right."

Inner Sakura doused herself with lamp oil, held up a match. _Thank you, but I think that was my cue!_

"I think I need to get up."

"I never got to try out groundwork with you. Do you really want to change that?"

_That might be interesting,_ Inner Sakura noted.

_Go finish off that fiery immolation thing,_ she hissed.

Having gotten no reply, Gaara returned to his task, one hand resting on her hip as the other soothed another clenched muscle by her shoulder blade. In the silence, Sakura argued with herself mercilessly.

_He kissed me again. That wasn't supposed to happen._

_But it did._

_But what do I do now? I promised I'd tell Lee first once I figured out what was going on. _

_Tell him tomorrow._

_Lee deserves to know._

_It's late, Lee's probably asleep by now. And if you woke him up to tell him now, I think he'd be less than happy with you for even more than the given reason._

_I can't let it happen again. It was probably just a fluke, after all. Nothing major, and he probably didn't mean it anyway. Again._

_He said it was curiosity before. That didn't feel like curiosity. It felt like he damn well knew what he was doing._

_But he also said he wouldn't let it happen again. _

_Damned demanding, spoiled, always has to get his way Sand bastard._

_Damn me for letting him._

"I shouldn't have to browbeat you into things that you know are for your own good," Gaara stated. His hands spread across the bottom of her ribcage, squeezed, then relaxed.

"I know."

_I want to hide. _

"Why are you so stubborn, then?"

She could hear the exasperation, the smile in his voice, and smiled because of it. "Guess that's just the way I am."

"Fair enough."

_That's what Lee said, when I told him that I didn't know what was going on. But now I think I do. I just need to be sure. But then I have to tell him._

She tried to relax, tried to ignore the feel of his hands, tried to think about anything except his touch. Nothing worked. Breathing shakily, she was more than painfully aware of him as he traced up her arm to her hand, brushed a thumb over her knuckles. The scars from her drills with the training posts were fading, but the skin was still new, pink. "What happened here?"

"I got into a fight with a stump."

"I hope you won."

"I walked away. It didn't."

He made a quiet sound of amusement, then shifted off of her. Sakura sat up and faced him, pulling her knees to herself and watching him cautiously as he reached for her hand again.

"You could have gone with Naruto, or Lee," she whispered. "Why here? Why me?"

He shrugged, then began a close inspection of her knuckles. "Because I want to be here. With you."

_Means nothing. Means nothing. Nothing._

Gaara edged in until he was close enough beside her for their shoulders to almost touch, his almost-relaxed posture a blatant contrast to her tension. The hand not holding hers reached out to her face. His voice seemed hesitant, unsure. "I missed you."

_Breathe,_ Inner Sakura reminded her.

She tried to blow it off, smiling. "My lap, you mean."

"More than that."

Now she was the one that was unsure. "The others?"

He shrugged, looked back to her hand in his. "Not the same."

"But... You said friends. You said that was it."

"But it's not that easy, not that simple anymore."

As Sakura tried to figure out how to dismiss that sure series of statements, he raised her hand to his mouth. Lips pressed against new skin. Then, as his eyes met hers, she felt his tongue flicker over her knuckles.

Eyes wide, she tried unsuccessfully to snatch her hand back. "What are you _doing?_"

His grip tightened only enough to keep her in place. "You know already."

Something in her crumpled, crumbled. Her heart sank. "Curiosity..."

"No," he said sharply. "Not that simple."

_You have no idea how not simple you've made things._

He continued, turning her hand palm-up. "I told you. I want to be here. I want to be with you." His voice dropped, suddenly husky. "I want to know how you taste."

His mouth opened gently against her wrist, tongue caressing.

She gasped. "I –"

Releasing her wrist, Gaara leaned in towards her. "Relax." He brushed pink hair away from her face, back from her neck, inhaling deeply before turning his ministrations to the spot right below her ear. The hand she had raised to push him away wound, instead, into his hair, as he trailed careful lips across her skin.

Elation warred with panic mixed with curiosity. The curve of his throat was close enough that she could lean forward and taste him as he tasted her.

_I won't. I can't._

_Only a little..._

Salt. Sweat. A bit of dust. Lips still against her, Gaara made a quiet, appreciative noise and drew her closer.

_This has gone too far. Way too far. I can't do this. How do I..._

"Shower," she squeaked.

"Hm?" The black-ringed eyes that met hers were darkly, sensuously amused, appraising.

_Alone! _Breathing raggedly, she struggled to make the words form coherent thoughts. "Me. I need a shower. I'm dirty. From today."

"Ah." His hands cupped her face, pulling her back in to meet his salt-tinged kiss. Not responding was unthinkable, impossible.

_If he keeps it up, you'll change your mind about that alone in the shower thing,_ Inner Sakura said.

Knowing that she was right, Sakura tried to pull back. "Mmf. I mean it."

He chuckled, released her, rose along with her. For a second, she thought he intended to follow her into the bathroom, but he only caught and squeezed her hand. "I'll wait."

Despite her best efforts, the bathroom door slammed behind her. She latched onto the sink, head down, and tried to steady herself.

_Oh my god. Oh my god._

_You need a new tagline,_ Inner Sakura grumped.

_He said that he wouldn't. But he's apparently spent these past few weeks reconsidering._

_Not that simple, he said. Never that simple._

_Always has to get what he wants._

_What am I supposed to do **now**,_ she mentally wailed.

_The way I see it, _Inner Sakura mused, _you have a few choices. One, hide in here for the rest of the night and hope he doesn't come in after you for one reason or another. Two, go out there and tell him that you're not able to continue because of a promise you made to Lee, where you said you'd tell him first when you figured things out. Problems there are that you've already been kissing Gaara, and that you still aren't sure of anything other than most of you is for trying out the third option._

_Third option?_

_Where you go out there and do him dirty._

She gulped, covered her face with her hands. _Let's figure out something along the lines of option two._

_Option two is fatally flawed. You won't see Lee until tomorrow, and you have to deal with Gaara now. He'll understand, sure, but it doesn't make sense that you're holding yourself back for a promise that you've either already broken or won't break by continuing._

_Won't break?_

A knock at the door interrupted her. "Sakura?"

Inner Sakura whooped. _Option one it is!_

Her voice was nowhere near as steady as she wanted it to be. "Yeah?"

"You forgot something."

_Anything. Everything._ She fought down her timidity and opened the door. The corner of Gaara's mouth twitched as he handed her a set of pajamas.

"Oh."

"Yeah. I figured you had forgotten them in your hurry to hide in here."

The truth stung. "I'm not hiding."

"Lurking?"

Meeting his wry expression, she smiled in turn. "No. Not this time."

Back in the relative safety of the bathroom, she took a second to look at the clothing he'd brought her. Tank top. Drawstring pants, soft, somewhat oversized, yet comfortable. Nothing too revealing, nothing over the top...

_Wait._

_Yeah, he did._

It was the exact same set she'd worn the last time he had spent the night over.

_Maybe he likes it. Maybe he's trying to tell me something. Even though it'd be easier if he flat-out said it. _She sighed at her own hypocrisy._ Like I'm not having any problems flat-out saying things to him tonight, though._

_Does this mean, though, that he's trying to repair the last time, make things good again?_

She stripped off her dirty clothing and turned on the shower, careful to adjust the hot water so it didn't burn her. Glancing in the mirror, she saw that the skin across the top of her chest was red, blotchy from her keyed-up state.

_See? He's no good. He's giving me hives from the other room._

Inner Sakura snorted as means of reply.

The water on her skin gave her something else to think about. _Would he shower with me, if I asked him? _

_That's a silly question. Better to ask whether or not he would be content with only touching, kissing. Better still to ask what you would do if he wasn't._

She shook away images of their wet skin sliding together, of the cool wall at her back. _Before, about the promise..._

_Your promise involves you figuring things out. Right now you don't know what to think, and things wouldn't change if you slept with him. _

_I'd hope I'd figure out **something** because of that, though!_

_But not enough. He's still Gaara. You know he's more than earned his reputation, but you really haven't come to terms with that. You've never seen him kill, only heard about it. You know his story. You know little things, random things, like how he'll eat spicy food even though he picks green peppers out of anything. But you don't even know when his birthday is._

_Wow,_ she thought. _That's right. And that's not good._

_And then there's the sanity factor. He's gotten infinitely better than he was when you first met him, yes. But do you know if you're really willing to get into something that major with a person that can't sleep or their personality will be absorbed by a rabid demon sand tanuki? What if you did get that involved with him before you even touched upon anything I mentioned here? Yes, he's progressed amazingly from where he was before, but he'd never be a person to toy with, never be a person you could lead along anywhere near the degree you do Lee. Your being this indecisive with him would get someone killed._

Sakura nodded to herself, turned off the water. _My indecision... It's doing no good for anyone. I can fix things. All I have to really do is talk to him._ She tried out possibilities, phrases, questions, as she dried herself off and dressed.

Gaara was sitting in the hallway beside the door, arms resting on his knees, fingers linked. He glanced up, half-smiled at her unintelligible greeting.

"I need a shower, too," he said as he stood.

"Ok." She reached out, touched his side as he circled around her. "When you get out, can... can we talk?"

"Ok."

If she hadn't been looking for it, she would have missed the uncertainty that fleetingly crossed his features. But because she saw it, she couldn't let him worry about what she was thinking in the same way she'd worried about him. Her kiss was close-lipped, careful—but as he exhaled against her before wrapping an arm around her waist, she knew that he had needed the gesture.

"It's nothing to worry about," she whispered.

His hand slipped under the bottom of her tank top, brushing the skin at the small of her back. "Good." He unwound as he passed her, his touch skimming along her side and across her stomach, the door closing on his smile.

Sakura sighed. _If that little contact throws me off this much..._ Her head bumped the wall as she leaned back and chuckled at herself. _I wonder how long it would take to not be so... aware of him._

She sighed again. _Lee._

_Lee said he wanted me to be happy._

_Lee said, "I want you to want me." And I wanted to. But nothing like this._

_Lee said, "It's your choice."_

_I believe I've made that choice now, Lee. And I'm sorry._

The living room seemed too formal a place to meet him, the kitchen too mundane. In relation, her bedroom seemed far too intimate.

_But isn't that what you wanted?_

_I don't know. But I don't want to be indecisive anymore._

_Lights on or off? _Sakura shook her head. _On. Definitely._

She sat on the edge of the bed, then the corner, then on her pillow. Lying down seemed audacious.

_If I sit near the head of the bed, against the wall, he can lay down with his head in my lap. That will probably be the most comfortable place for him._

In a few minutes, she heard the water stop running. Shortly after that, the bathroom door clicked.

_Breathe. You're going to talk to him, and you need air to do that._

His bare feet made no sound on the wooden floor, his smooth stride nothing short of predatory. His sandals were deposited neatly beside the door; his shirt on top of her dresser. Because she could, she took her time watching him, intrigued by the play of muscle under his skin.

He stopped moving in front of her, a challenge edging into his voice. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah." She patted the spot beside her. "Come here."

He leaned against the wall beside her, their shoulders brushing, his knee bumping against hers. "What about?"

_Everything. Anything. It's not that hard to say. _"I want to get to know you better."

Sakura watched a muscle in his closest shoulder flex, saw his fingers clench ever so slightly. "What do you mean?"

"I just realized how little I really know about you. I was wondering..." Her hand raised slowly, came to rest on his knee. "I was wondering if you could tell me more. Could help me understand."

"I can try." His next words gave her the freedom she needed as his hand covered hers. "Ask whatever you wish."

She nodded, biting the inside of her lip.

_This should be easy. Awkward here and there, but easy._

_I'm not sure I really want all of the answers._

_But there's no way to be able to have something real here without knowing as much as possible._

"What does it feel like... to lose control?"

Gaara sighed, was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his expression was carefully blank, his voice perfectly flat. "Once I'm past the fear, and the hate, and the pain... Once I've given up, or been so swept up in it that I can't stay grounded..." Green eyes met hers, startlingly cold. "Then it's wonderful."

She tried to restrain the shock, the vague sense of horror. "You like it?"

"I don't have to think, or feel. All I must do is move, kill. And the movement itself, the violence, the release... It becomes perfection. It becomes beautiful."

_I refuse to be afraid of whatever he may tell me. There is no love in fear. _

Her next question was answered with the same cool, brutal honesty. And the one after that. And so on. Anything she could think of was dealt with summarily.

_I wanted this. I asked for this._

"For years, my existence was measured only by my destroying others. I did it to feel alive. No, I don't know how many people I've killed. I couldn't even guess."

_I'm going to remember this night for the rest of my life, no matter what._

At some point he shifted away from sitting upright to pillow his head on her thigh, facing upwards to gesture with both hands. Sakura took the hint and stuck to the last of her innocuous questions, fingers working his hair to an even more unruly mess. Finally, she fell silent.

"That's enough for the night?"

She smiled. "I'm out of things to ask you."

Gaara reached for her hand. "Was it enough?"

_Nothing I can't come to terms with. For this, for the devotion of this lost soul, this broken weapon, this black-hearted monster... Yes, I can accept. And I can forgive._

With the decision came peace.

"Yes, it was."

He pressed his lips to her palm gratefully.

_Now I definitely have to tell Lee. But before that... _"Hey."

"Hm?"

"Sit up for a second."

Confused, he obliged. She slid away from the wall, stood. _It's the least I can do. And it's friendly. So there's nothing wrong with it._

_Come on, _Inner Sakura jabbed, _you just want to touch him._

"Turn over."

_I can do it and keep my promise. Right?_

Comprehension brought another wry half-smile. "But my back doesn't hurt."

"Mine doesn't anymore, either, thanks to you. It'd be kind of me to return the favor."

"If you insist..." He stretched out face-down, folding his arms under her pillow.

Stifling a giggle of idiot glee at the line of his shoulders, Sakura straddled him, surveying his back before she set hands against him. The texture of his skin made her blush.

_Damn him, there's not a tense muscle in here!_

When not flexed, she found that he was actually very soft. Determined to be thorough, she worked her way down to the small of his back, then back up. She put her weight behind the last few minutes on his shoulders, rising up to her knees and rocking carefully with her motions, enjoying the contact possibly a little too much.

_There. _

Sakura shifted off to lay beside him, still enamored with his skin, one leg draped across his hips even as he turned to his side to face her. By then, she recognized his expression, the particular intensity, and lifted herself off of the bed to make it easier for Gaara to pull her against him. Lips carefully brushed hers before he pulled back, watching her with wide eyes, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

Comfortable. But more.

Her hand pressed against his chest. "Your heart... it's going awfully fast."

"Yeah." Fingers touched the pulse point at her throat. "Yours, too."

"Yeah, it is."

Peaceful. But more.

She almost didn't hear his whisper. "Is this love?"

"I don't know."

A smile. "You told me that before. A long time ago."

"It was different then. It's a lot different now."

"How so?"

She bit her lip. "I was seeing Lee for a while, but wasn't sure if I actually wanted to be with him. I told him that today, and he told me to tell him once I figured things out. And now... I get to tell him in the morning."

"He'll be upset."

"I have to."

"I know."

It was ridiculous that she should feel guilt for her happiness. She told herself that as she pressed closer, but it didn't stick.

"It's getting really late. You should get some sleep."

"I know," she murmured, head against his shoulder.

He was silent for a moment. She couldn't put her finger on the source of the hissing until the light switch flipped off. _Sand... I hope he brings the entire thing in here instead of leaving a pile on my floor._

"Don't worry," he murmured.

Sakura jerked away from him. "I didn't _say_ it!"

Darkness apparently made him bolder. His hands ran up under the back of her shirt, traced across the thigh she'd draped over him. "I know."

No matter what, he still deserved the occasional healthy prod. "So... You can read minds now, too?"

"No."

"Just know everything."

His standard way to respond to a barbed comment of hers was to get grouchy. This habit, also, was comforting. "I know that in about four hours the sun is going to come up, and unless you get some sleep then you won't be very good company for the rest of the day."

She stifled a yawn against him. "If you can do it, I can too."

"Silly girl. I've got years of practice. Not to mention that my company isn't quite what you'd call the best."

Part of the conversation from their previous morning together drifted back to her. "But I know your secret, the trick to it now." Something clicked. _It applies. The more you want something you can't have..._

"Gaara?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you just not think about it? Not think about me, not put yourself in the situations you have?"

He touched her face, her hair. "Because I couldn't give myself enough of a reason to want to do so."

**ooo**

She came half-awake when she rolled over, on some level not wanting to disturb him, but he shifted with her, fitting against her back like a missing piece of herself. Knowing that he was fully alert almost made her angry, almost made her shake off the rest of her slumber to snap at him - but she could still pass off the hand that slid up under her shirt to press against her ribs, a hair's breadth away from indecent, as being there only to feel her heartbeat. And so, she let him be.

Later, when she turned over to face him, the patternless designs he traced against the skin of her back were what lulled her to sleep.

Finally, though, when she woke up to dawn's dim light, he was pressed so close that she was overheating. Squirming free of him and of the blanket that covered them, she avoided his amusedly grasping hand en route to the window. Once out from under the blanket, it wasn't that bad, but she still pushed the window open, appreciating the cold morning air that washed in and over her, chilling and drying the sweat on her skin.

_How the hell did it get this hot in here?_

_Let's think about this, _she chastened herself. _Two warm bodies, one very warm blanket, small area. That will apparently do it. _

Gaara stretched, looking entirely too pleased with himself. She scowled. _He probably felt me up while I was sleeping, when I didn't know any better._

"It's not time for you to be up yet," he rumbled. "Come back here."

She let out a very undignified giggle before obliging, turning so she nestled her back against him. _Things are okay. They're still okay._

Gaara's arm wrapped around her, hand going back under her shirt for the skin of her stomach. His breath brushed against her ear when he spoke, voice low, darkly amused. "It got... awfully hot in here."

_Holy damn predatory. Whoa, what did I just crawl into bed with!_

The next thought froze her. _You know what he is._

"Very..." The hand on her stomach tracked upwards, apparently no longer caring about indecent, as his mouth opened against her shoulder.

_Oh, wow. Oh, no._

_I'm not going to... I told myself I wouldn't do anything else. And I shouldn't._ When she squirmed, his arm clamped around her waist, holding her against him. "Interesting," he breathed.

_That's not his hip. _

_What the hell brought this on?_

"Gaara, let me go."

He loosened his grip enough for her to turn around, then clenched onto her again. "Better?"

She was about to tell him no, that it wasn't better at all, but he leaned in for the side of her neck, the combination of his tongue and teeth making her forget her words. When he moved towards her face, though, she knew exactly what to say. "Wait!"

"Hm?"

"Let me up. I've got to brush my teeth."

"Good idea." His cheek rubbed against hers briefly as he tasted her earlobe before the hold on her was relinquished.

_He's going to try to follow me in, isn't he? Yeah. _Sakura stopped him just outside of the door, pressing her palm against his chest. "Alone. Girl stuff."

His expression was somewhere between amused and hungry, gentle and predatory, everything blending smoothly together into the simplicity of want. "All right."

_I will not hide in here. At least, not for long. _Once she was finished with the essentials, she felt a little more steady. He slipped through the door she left open with no further ceremony, finally focused on something besides her.

Her room was cooling down well, thanks to the open window. She absently rubbed the gooseflesh that broke out on her upper arms. _Maybe I should change now. No, I don't know how long he'll take in there._

_I'll just tell him no more, when he gets out. He should have had enough time by now to have calmed down some._

A whisper of fabric behind her was her only indication of his approach until he spoke. "What are you thinking about?"

She shrugged, tried to seem dismissive. He stepped around her, commanding her attention. "Well?"

"It's just... You came on a little strong there, you know? I'm not used to it."

He tilted her chin up to face him. "I'm sorry." Lips whispered against her forehead. "I can make it better."

His mouth against hers wasn't what she had in mind, but she found that it would do just as well. And if he pulled her with him towards the bed, she'd been intending to go back there anyway. Straddling him, his face in her hands as she kissed him as deeply as he did her, she reflected for a moment that she really shouldn't be doing this. Then rational thought fled her, leaving nothing but heat, the slightly salty taste of his shoulder, his body under her hands as his weight bore her down into the mattress. Her tank top was tugged one way, then the other, her just-exposed skin protesting the cold air only for a second before it was covered by warm hands, a warmer mouth.

_What am I doing? _

_I don't care._

His stomach was a source of amusement, something to examine, trace the lines of. Gaara gave her a second to speculate, to consider, before guiding her hands to the fastenings of his pants. Curiosity overcame skepticism, and the gentle noise he made against her neck as her hand closed over soft skin was all the encouragement she needed.

His voice was rough. "I want you." He tugged at the drawstring of her pants, tugged at the pants themselves. She shifted to help him.

Again, against her mouth as he pressed her back down, hands caressing her now bare thighs. "I want you."

She whimpered. _I can't._

A hand slid away from her thigh to adjust himself, pressing himself against her. Sakura braced, but he went no further.

Black-ringed eyes met hers as he calmly licked three of his fingers. The all too personal saliva-slick slide of them made her writhe.

Her eyelids pressed shut. She couldn't look at him. It was all far too much.

"I want you to want me."

The words, and her memory of who had first said them to her, jolted her eyes open.

_I can't._

The motion changed from a stroke to a circle. Her stomach muscles locked, legs shook where she pressed them against his, the fabric of his pants pleasantly distracting. Hands raced across his back and over his shoulders, pulling him in to meet her breathless kiss.

_It wouldn't take much at all..._

This time it was a command. "Want me..."

_I can't. I can't._

"I do."

He still refused to continue. She recognized what he really wanted as the circles tightened, prompting her to push up helplessly from beneath him.

_Just a little bit. A little bit won't be so bad._

_But it's not enough._

"It's your choice," he whispered.

_But it always had been, hadn't it? To accept him, or to leave him and walk away. _

She could never have walked away from him, and he knew it.

With a hopeless gasp, she gripped his hips, pulling him down to her as she thrust herself against him.

It was both better and worse than she had imagined. She felt her flesh tear to accommodate his, felt him rub against what seemed like every single overtaxed muscle on his way, until his body impacted against hers at precisely the right point to –

Her first cry wrenched her head back, arched her against him. His hand clamped over her mouth to muffle the others that were wrung from her in time with the pitch of their bodies, lips near her ear, the choked noises he was emitting driving her higher.

Eventually it subsided, and he pulled his hand away from her mouth in order to kiss her again. To an extent, thought returned, even as her hips continued to rise methodically to meet his. _Why did he... Because of the open window, or because it sounded too close to pain?_

An elbow hooked under her knee, impairing her ability to move properly against him as her shirt bunched between them.

_But we're both still clothed!_

Fingers interlaced with hers, pressing her hand to the mattress beside her head. He reared back, wide eyes holding her gaze as with a series of sharp movements he gasped out his release.

The enormity of the situation hit her as he sank back down, forehead against hers, nuzzling her lips, her face.

_What have I done?_

_Sasuke's called me a whore so many times now... and here I am, supposed to be thinking things out over Lee, half-naked and post-coital under Gaara!_

_**What kind of awful person am I?**_

_Oh, no..._ Suddenly she felt incredibly, unbelievably, revoltingly dirty.

Lips pressed agitatedly against her temple, her cheek, as hands caressed her sides, pressing her harder against him. "I love you." Then again, rougher, into her ear. _"I love you."_

She burst into tears.


	7. 7

I apologize for the size of this in advance, but I aim to finish it here and now.  
I believe I intend to pull out all the stops this time, as things may go.

(Music: Tori Amos & Trent Reznor – Siren, Dieselboy - Hostile, VNV Nation – Epicenter, Aphrodite & Tori Amos – Precious Things)

* * *

The hands at her sides tightened momentarily as Gaara pulled back, as if to confirm the truth of her reaction, then slammed into the mattress under her to propel him away. His confusion and shock were both evident in his expression, his voice.

"What? What's wrong?"

Sakura struggled to an upright position, knees locked together, her shuddering breath further destroying her ability to speak. "I... I shouldn't... I, I'm a... I..." She choked back a sob, wiped futilely at her eyes. Perversely, all she found she wanted was to have him hold her until the guilt went away, but he watched the hand she stretched out towards him as if it would bite.

_Damn it,_ Inner Sakura said. _You had to go have a psychotic break in front of the person with absolutely no conflict resolution skills._

His breath hitched when he looked down at himself. Her blood on his body only served to hammer home the reality of their actions.

"I hurt you."

The shame coloring his words jolted her into a semblance of coherency. "No, you –"

"I'm sorry. I'll go..."

"No!" She lunged forward to catch his wrist before he could stand. The glance he turned to her hand was cold, hard, and she realized that his pain had shifted to his next logical emotional step – anger.

There was nothing of the person she had gone to sleep against in his expression as he sat beside her, thigh pressed tight against hers. His voice was harsh, sharp, as if to remind her that the wrong word, the wrong hesitation would send him out of her door. "What's wrong?"

"I... I told Lee that I would tell him first, once I figured out what my choice was. And I told myself that I wouldn't let things go too far here, but then they did. And –"

"You didn't want to."

Possibly, maybe, her hand on his could touch the semblance of the human underneath of the shell. "Yes, I did."

As if moving independently of the rest of him, his hand turned palm-up, fingers clamping lightly around her wrist.

"But you regret me?"

Dangerous questions. Dangerous, loaded questions.

"No." Her shame might be strong, but she refused to lose him again. "Never."

_But to just go leaping into bed with someone because it seems like the thing to do at the time... That's not how I work. It wouldn't make me noble, a better person. To pass up the rational in favor of only the possibility of something right would make me..._

The coldness seemed to be relenting slightly from the eyes that met hers.

_It would make me him._

_Come to terms._

"Then tell me what's wrong."

She closed her eyes and squeezed her knees to herself, searching for the true root of the problem. It wasn't hard to find at all.

"Sasuke."

His grip on her wrist tightened almost imperceptibly.

_Damn it! Clarify, fast! _"Since I've been meeting with him, he's been accusing me of sleeping with you. With all of you, actually. He's been calling me a horrible person, a whore for years... And... It just felt like I had proven him right."

A pause. "Why did you even pay attention to him?"

"I heard it so many times..."

_Paying attention has nothing to do with it. Tell me you understand. You do. We've been hardwired by those around us. If the word monster slipped from my lips now, your reaction would already be determined. _

Silence. Then a soft snarl. "You should have just let me kill him."

"Never the easy way." She stared at the wall and smiled faintly, bitterly. "Besides, then who would help you find Orochimaru?"

"Fuck Orochimaru." The venom in his voice brought her head back around. "Fuck him. Fuck Sasuke too. They don't matter. You do."

_Speak so that I may be buoyed by the strength of your conviction. Grant me sureness such as yours._

When her arm slid around his chest, carefully, slowly, when she brought herself closer to press her cheek to his shoulder, he didn't pull away. Long minutes later, his free hand began to trace her spine.

"You're not horrible."

She squeezed him, said nothing. The steady rhythm of his breathing was soothing, calming.

"You're not a whore either. You'd be one if you really had gone through all of us. But you didn't."

_My blood on your body is proof enough of that._

Guilt shivered, twisted gently. "I kissed Lee."

"That's nothing. This was something." Fingertips traced over her arm, her side, before digging into her skin.

"He's your friend."

"It was _your_ choice."

_This vicious comfort somehow makes me whole._

His breath was soft against her hair. "We need to get cleaned up."

_My blood on your body... _"Yeah."

They took turns in the shower, each cautious about the new ground before them. She smiled faintly when he handed her a towel, murmured unintelligible thanks. When he reached for the towel she offered, she tried and failed to not look him over. He smiled faintly, fingertips damply brushing her face before he dried himself off, wrapped the towel around his hips.

_Maybe things will be okay after all._

What was turning around in the back of her mind suddenly decided to come to the forefront. _He told me he loves me. _

_And I didn't say anything back. I just broke down._

_Shit._

His words, from the night before. From before everything went completely out of control. "Is this love?"

_I don't know. I still don't. All I know for sure is that I want to be with him, too. But this, I have to figure out._

He turned, facing her as she moved towards him. _I wonder if he... Of course he noticed, he had to of. It's just a matter of how upset he'll be that I didn't say it as well._

The almost cautious way he returned her embrace told her that though he was upset, he wasn't going to let on too easily, make an issue of anything.

_I really am an awful person. But I have time. Don't I?_

_Time!_

She jumped. "Oh, no. I was supposed to meet Naruto this morning for our run. I'm late!"

Gaara nodded as he released her. "I'll wait here. Sasuke gets his walk in the morning today, and I can't be seen by him." Lips pulled back from his teeth slightly. "And you may not want him to be seen by me."

_And now we're back to that._

His watching her dress made her feel more than a little self-conscious. Trying to hurry without seeming it, she strapped on her weights and headed for the door.

_Wait._

Spinning to meet him, she pulled his face down to hers. If he was still brooding, it did nothing to hinder his response.

Arms locked around her. "Stay with me," he growled against her lips. "Just for a little while."

_I want to. _"I won't be long."

She wasn't ten feet outside of her door before Naruto met her, a bundle of agitated energy. "Back inside, get what you need, now."

"What?"

Gaara met them at the doorway as Naruto continued. "Sasuke bolted twenty minutes ago. We've got to go. _Now._"

Snarling, the red-haired ninja whirled and went for her room, returning seconds later with his sand and another brace of kunai for her. She stripped off the training weights before reaching for them.

"Lee and the others will meet us at the northern gate as soon as we're ready."

"I am."

Sakura checked the weaponry where it was strapped to her thighs. "Me too."

**ooo**

"Kiba?"

Akamaru yipped at her as his owner waved greeting. "Hey, Sakura. The Hokage attached me to this mission as of a few minutes ago, so all I'm really sure of is that it's another Sasuke recovery deal. Mind telling me what else is going on?"

When Gaara stepped up behind her, Akamaru whined and cowered. The Sand ninja spared the small animal a glare. "If he's going to do this the entire time, you may as well just stay here."

Both human and canine males bristled, Akamaru coming out of his crouch. "If we stay here, how else will you know where and how far away Sasuke is? If time is of the essence again, you can't waste time tracking him. You need our noses."

Gaara snorted, folded his arms. To their side, Lee jogged up, followed by two unfamiliar others. "Guys, these are the two top runners from our village."

"Maps?"

"Here," Naruto said. Gaara accepted them without looking.

_Lee. Shit!_

_Is there any way to do this without it seeming unbelievably sudden and blunt? _

_No._

"Lee?"

He blinked over at her, tense yet innocent.

_So innocent..._

_I have to. Now. Screw the situation, he deserves to know._

"I decided."

Lee searched her face for only a second. His jaw clenched and eyes closed, but then he nodded. "It was your choice."

She bit her lip, tried not to rush through. "Thank you for understanding."

"Thank you for telling me."

She cringed inwardly. _Things won't be the same here for a long time._

In the meantime, Gaara knelt on the ground and spread a map between himself and Kiba, the two others looking over their shoulders. "We'll follow him out. After a certain distance, when his line straightens, we mark our time and location and send it on with one of the runners to where one of the pockets of Sand's forces are waiting – here, or here, or here. The second runner repeats our distance and position to another pocket. Those pockets will use the figures we give them to plot out distances and times, and then alert the rest of the line. It's all jounin that are coming, so they should be able to loop around behind us without a problem, and by following us, reach Orochimaru hopefully at the same time we do."

Kiba's hands flexed against his knees. "Can't we wait for them?"

"It would take next to no time for Orochimaru to transition from his body to Sasuke's. Once one of you smells him, we need to catch up as quickly as possible to try to prevent that from happening."

Sakura spoke up. "Then the plan you mentioned to Gai?"

He scowled. "Only if combat can't be avoided. From there we play it by ear."

The Inuzuka stood, still obviously agitated. "What if the jounin don't get there at the same time as we do, though?"

"If, for some reason, that happens, and we have to fight, then you, Sakura, and Lee slow Sasuke. Leave Orochimaru to me and Naruto."

Lee scowled, sounding offended. "Why you two?"

Naruto and Gaara exchanged glances before the blond elaborated. "It's because... We're the ones most likely to be able to hold him off. Strongest chakra, stuff like that."

A shrug. "Fair enough."

She coughed. "Guys. Talk later."

With a few nods of agreement, the maps were rolled up and they were off.

**ooo**

For a while, things were as simple as the fluidity of movement, the drive of feet into soft soil, as simple as targeting the next branch to land on. They checked their direction three times before it was clear enough that Sasuke was indeed headed in a straight line. Once that was certain, their first runner was off.

"You guys are banking an awful lot on his following this line," Kiba grumbled.

"He has no reason to break habit," Gaara replied. "And now it seems that he hasn't."

_If they start growling at each other, or peeing on trees in some sort of territorial display, then I vote for knocking their heads together,_ Inner Sakura said.

But his fingers brushed against her arm as he started forward again, eyes meeting hers, and she blushed, remembering.

Better to run, to think about time and their proximity to their prey, to think about marking down their position on one of the remaining maps, then to consider how his muscles bunched and flexed under his skin, the slightest sheen of sweat over his upper lip.

Noon found them still moving. The points on their maps continued to show a single direction.

Their second runner was off.

_If Sasuke keeps it up, he's going to come awfully close to Sound._

Naruto jabbed Kiba. "Tell us when you pick up the others."

"Of course."

More hours passed, to the point that Sakura started to wonder if they'd be in any shape to fight whenever they finally did reach their target's destination.

"He's slowing," Kiba said suddenly.

Exhaustion melted away from all of them, replaced by stark tension, readiness.

Lee rolled his shoulders experimentally. "And?"

Akamaru gave a low whine, the hair of his ruff standing up. Kiba didn't have to interpret.

Naruto stared ahead, towards their still invisible adversary. "The others?"

"I can't tell how close they are yet. The wind isn't right. But..." The Inuzuka's eyes were wide, wild. "They're there, right? They're coming?"

"They'd better be," Gaara growled.

_Does he worry that Sand would use this time, this opportunity, to get rid of a ninja that's been a poisoned thorn in their collective sides since he was born?_

"We've got to stop them, now," she said.

Their dash was frantic yet controlled, silent, each ducking into hiding as their primary target came into view. Sasuke took cautious steps forward, scanning the area expectantly, hands out of his pockets and ready at his sides.

A shadow unattached itself from beside a tree and glided forward to greet him, stopping some distance away. Though Sakura didn't recognize the form, she still recognized the demeanor, the eyes. _Still the theatrics. As long as they take time, Orochimaru, I may forgive you them._

To her immediate right, Gaara muttered something she was glad she couldn't hear, glanced around them one last time, then gripped her hand tightly, painfully. _Be safe_, he mouthed, then disappeared in a silent swirl of sand.

To her far left, behind Naruto and Lee, Kiba looked bewildered. Naruto caught her eye, spoke silently. _What's he doing?_

She turned a palm upward. _Hell if I know!_

With a glare, the blond chuunin bit down on his thumb hard enough to draw blood. Though he drew no chakra in order to draw no attention, she recognized the preparation for summoning.

A chuckle, pitched to carry, came from off to her right. "Uchiha Sasuke."

Gaara stepped from the cover of the forest, eyes a little too wide, smile a little too toothy, his voice rippling, liquid. "So pleased to see you here. Along with my next... favorite individual, at that."

_All of unholy hell._

_I hope he's faking. I hope this is his best act. I hope he's just killing time. Because if he's halfway in already..._

_You may not want him to be seen by me, he said. You should have just let me kill him, he said. _

_Maybe he wants this?_

A low hiss came from Orochimaru. Sasuke, though, straightened his shoulders and shot back a hostile glare. "Aren't you a little far from home, Gaara?"

"Since Sand overran Sound, I may go where I choose."

Sasuke's blink said that he hadn't known. Gaara leaped on that. "He didn't tell you? Your priceless benefactor? Your weakling martyr? He didn't tell you that he hid while we razed his village, while the people that looked up to and worshipped him died screaming at my hands?"

"Your Kabuto," he sneered, turning back to the older man. "He, especially, since his skills forced his body to regenerate even as I destroyed him. In the end, though, he couldn't keep up, and his pain was..." He licked his lips. "Exquisite."

_He's not faking. Oh no. He's not faking it. He doesn't need to. Everything that he is is already his best weapon. _

"You're bluffing," Sasuke said, as if to cover the single step back he had taken. "You've changed. You accepted the leash and collar my old teammates offered you."

"I am as much myself as I was before. The only thing that has changed is my proximity to those you once loved. Do you think Sakura didn't tell me about the things you said to her? Your petty accusations? Of course she did. And because of it, I'm that much more sure of what I told you years ago. _You're just like me._ The only differences between us are that I don't hide who I am, and I have the balls to take what I want. Did you really think your pitiful games would convince her to submit to you? You played them, though, and all it took was being in the right place at the right time to reap what you had intended to be _your_ benefits."

Her mind reeled. _He can't be serious. Sasuke intended – He **can't** be serious!_

The expression on Sasuke's face, though, said that Gaara was spot-on.

_It was all a sick sort of **flirting?**_

Beside Naruto, Lee dug clenched fists into the ground.

"And because you didn't take what you wanted, or didn't at least go about it in a more high-minded way..."

"You didn't."

"In its own way, fear is as satisfying as pain, as blood. But in the end she welcomed my touch."

Her skin crawled. _He can't be serious. He can't._

_But I did._

To her left, Kiba gestured, touched his nose. _They're coming._

Sasuke shook his head. "I don't believe you."

"You don't have to _believe _me. All you have to do is bleed. I still want you dead, Uchiha."

"You forget someone," Orochimaru stated.

"Not in the least. Go ahead, take his body now. It means I only have to deal with one of you."

"Maybe I'll take yours instead."

"Someone like you? A self-absorbed, self-righteous egomaniac, that locked up in your own desires?" Gaara snorted, folded his arms. "You wouldn't last a week in this husk."

"I would let the demon in you devour everything, then, and be content with the destruction."

"You wouldn't be around to see it. You could only hope that he ran unsealed for long enough to complete part of your objective."

"That may be enough."

"Then go ahead." Gaara turned completely towards him, opening his arms. "Free me."

The prickle across her shoulders was her only warning of the forest coming to life around her before Sand's forces began to rain from the trees, diving towards Orochimaru with a collective, full-throated roar. The once-Sannin gave a shout of his own and charged at the red-headed form in front of him, who met him with a howl.

The movement broke Sasuke's freeze. "No!"

As he lunged towards the combatants, Leaf's own lunged towards him. Sharingan gave Sasuke more than an edge against his determined opponents. The twin results of Kiba and Akamaru's beast-human bunshin leapt in from either side, but were avoided. She saw a flash of steel in Sasuke's hand before Lee attacked. Only her teammate's Gate-heightened speed saved him from taking a lethal blow.

_Damn him! We're supposed to capture him if we can, and he's going to try to kill us!_

She skidded to a halt as the transformation began. _What the hell?_

White skin darkened to gray, black hair lightening and lengthening. With a snap, Sasuke sprouted webby, inverted wings.

_The second form?_

Undaunted, a dozen Narutos attacked him anyway.

_I must, also. _Drawing a kunai, she entered the fray.

Lee darted back in, aiming a kick for Sasuke's midsection, but missed and went down. Either Kiba or Akamaru sprung off of Lee's shoulders but was caught, clipped across the clearing and out of sight. Caught up in his fight with the others, Sasuke didn't notice her until she slashed the membrane of a wing open. The impact of its frame against her torso was surreal, as was her brief flight into a nearby tree trunk.

_It's a good thing there's this many of us, attacking at once. If he was allowed to follow up on any of these hits, we'd be dead._

Someone bellowed her name, and she staggered upright.

_I will not give up._

Naruto tried for Rasengan, but Sasuke landed on him before he could complete it. Lee came in from the side, tried to knock him away, but fell back with a cry, his hand going to a wound on his stomach created by suddenly overdeveloped nails.

She went for the raised hand that was starting to crackle with Chidori's energy, intending to at least slash Sasuke enough to give him something to think about other than killing the blond under him, but caught an elbow to the solar plexus instead. Exhaling hard helped her get past the initial shock in order to get up and keep going, and gave her just enough time to jerk out of the way to avoid the shockwave of Chidori and Rasengan's meeting.

_He's stunned. Now._

Naruto drew both feet back and kicked the Uchiha squarely in the chest. She intercepted his impromptu flight in order to connect her foot solidly with his skull. One of the Inuzukas slashed at him as he landed, but was smashed out of the way as Sasuke reclaimed his feet.

Landing, Kiba shivered back into his normal form, then dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth and holding his ribs. Also back in his normal form, Akamaru hobbled up to him, snarling at Sasuke as if to say that they may be down, but they weren't...

_Shit. They're out._

"He can't use that shape for too much longer," Naruto shouted. "Keep him moving!" As if suddenly remembering it, he slammed his bleeding hand to the dirt**. "**_Kuchiyose no Jutsu!_"

The toad that appeared wasn't nearly as impressive as the one from his chuunin exam, but worked well enough. Lee spun in, connecting a kick with the back of Sasuke's knee. Seeing the break as the Uchiha crumbled, the toad wrapped its tongue around him and bashed him off of the ground.

Undaunted, Sasuke rolled to his feet. Chidori flared to life around his hand as he charged Naruto again.

_His attention is focused. Go._

Muscle memory brought her Gai's drills. She slammed the instep of her foot into the back of the knee Lee had already hit, halting Sasuke's forward motion if not his momentum as she barreled into him. Wings battered at her as she latched onto his back, trying for a choke. The arm she attempted to wrap around her old teammate's neck was gripped onto with one long-nailed hand right before Sasuke struggled back to his feet and slung her over his shoulder. Luckily, her momentum went forward instead of down, and she was able to roll out of the fall.

Even as his form started to shift away, Sasuke turned his back on her to strike out at Lee.

_Going for the weakened, the wounded first?_

Naruto and toad leaped towards him, but were clubbed with one collapsing wing.

_I won't allow it._

Lee's kick drove Sasuke back into her even as the Uchiha's hair began to return to black, his skin paling to its normal hue. And she was moving, grasping both him and her kunai as he collapsed down with her.

_I'll stop you._

Knives don't need big circles, Gai had said. Big circles are for weapons you need momentum on. The edges and point of the blade call for speed more than power.

The metal in her hand made a tight circle past her ear, impacted down, then stopped.

Everything around her stopped.

In her arms, Sasuke made a soft, wet, choking noise.

_It's understandable,_ she thought, arms and legs suddenly heavy, immobile.

_No wonder he's choking. He's covered in sand up to his chin._

Naruto staggered to his feet, stood by Gaara. "Let's only break his arms this time. I don't feel like carrying him back to Konoha again."

The redhead nodded, arms folding. "Two places each good?"

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

Sand shifted against her slightly. Sasuke suddenly gave a short, high-pitched scream, a sound she'd never heard come out of a human's mouth before, then went limp, consciousness fading.

"You can let go of him now, Sakura."

_But I felt the impact._

As the sand began to fall away from them, Gaara knelt beside her. "Sakura."

Her voice was breathy, small. "But I killed him."

"Almost." He tugged her wrist, bringing the kunai away from Sasuke's chest. Below where the point had rested was a small spot of bright blood. "But I caught your arm first."

Her hand opened, weapon sliding from nerveless fingers to impale the ground. _I tried to..._

"It wasn't bad form. I think Gai would be proud."

Naruto spoke up, glanced to the side. "They're good over there?"

"Yeah."

She followed their gazes to see Sand's jounin forces circling a figure on the ground. Gaara's fingers interlaced with hers. "Sorry they didn't help you guys out, but as far as they're concerned, this one's small fry. And if Orochimaru had gotten away or any of our shinobi had gotten killed while anyone else was dealing with Sasuke, there would have been hell to pay."

Shaking, she couldn't bring herself to care. And as long as Gaara and Naruto were content to talk over her head, she didn't have to.

"The others?"

"I saw Lee take a hit, and Kiba go down. Let's go help them."

Gaara nodded assent. "I'm sure they brought a medical ninja or two with this group. Sakura, are you okay with keeping an eye on... Ah, damn it."

"What's wrong?"

"Shock, I think. You go ahead." Strong hands pulled her away from Sasuke and back into his arms, prodded her body gently. "Sakura? Sakura, look at me."

She shook her head, then yelped when his fingers pressed against her side.

"That hurts?"

Glaring didn't hurt. And if he didn't stop looking so amused, she'd do her damnedest to show him what hurt was.

_Even if he said..._

"Uh-huh. Can you still walk?"

"Well enough," she grumbled.

When she tried to get up, he held her down with him. "And Sakura. What I said to him... I only was honest enough to make him believe."

_Half-truths spun together so well that he couldn't help but believe. In an instant? In the moment between when he left my side and when he emerged? Or has he been thinking about this since I told him, this morning?_

His cheek pressed against her ear. "I'm sorry."

_Everything that you are. _

She drew back to touch his face. "You still worry me, sometimes."

Because he was still damned unpredictable. Because thinking about acceptance and actually seeing him in action were still two separate entities.

_Come to terms._

"If I didn't, I'm not sure what you'd be."

**ooo**

It was with only a little bit of shock that they found that they were supposed to accompany Sand's fighters to what was once Orochimaru's own personal Hidden Village.

"Well, it is a lot closer," Naruto shrugged, rocking back on his heels as he stretched. "So I can appreciate that. And we could use the medics there, and the rest, too."

"Towing Sasuke back along most of a full day's run when Sound is this close doesn't seem reasonable," Lee agreed. Even without his wounds, the damage inflicted upon his body by his use of the Gates had been enough to keep him seated, still.

"And it's where Orochimaru needs to be taken," Gaara said. The tense set of his shoulders and his expression didn't bode well for anyone. He elaborated without anyone having to ask, watching the dirt in front of Lee's crossed legs. "We've broken the village's back. Now it's time to castrate it as well. The execution will be tomorrow morning, and they want Sasuke to be there to see it. After that, he's the Fifth's problem."

The Hidden Village of Sound was nearly silent. Very few faces peered cautiously from windows and entryways to note their procession. Doors loomed open, black. Sakura reached out for Gaara's arm, gestured. "Why?"

"Dissidents. We wiped them out. An open doorway marks an emptied home."

Inwardly, she cringed. "How many?"

"Maybe eighty percent."

_This is war. Broken the village's back? Flayed it alive, you mean, torn it to shreds. And it's not done yet._

Draped over Naruto's shoulder, Sasuke came awake once on the trip. His attempts to struggle were halfhearted at best, and when he fell still, defeat was so bitterly etched into his face that Sakura almost felt sorry for him.

Taking up a guard duty position that night, she managed to get a chance to speak to him. Moonlight fell softly across his broken and bound form, illuminating the seals intended to keep him from channeling very much energy should he get free again.

"Sasuke, why?"

Bitterness and pain warred equally across his features, his head rolling to the side to look away from her. "Because I could. Because he offered me power."

"Not that."

"Ah." He almost smiled. "Also, because I could."

_And I can see how he would think it would work. Desperate to prove myself innocent to him, I was supposed to throw myself to the mercy of whatever he would chose to do with me. He didn't count on my reaction to the deaths he caused, didn't count on the guys being there for me. It's a good thing, because otherwise... It might have worked._

_Not for love. Not even for lust._

"For power."

_I was the only thing he was even given a chance to control._

"Possibly." Dark eyes met hers as she crouched beside him. "Gaara spoke the truth, didn't he?"

"He was there for me. All of them were, actually. But yes, he was honest in the respect that he was the only one who really had the nerve to take things that step further."

It was said with no inflection, no spite. "I hope he kills you. I hope you die under him."

She stood, winced slightly as the motion reminded her of her bruises. "There are far worse things you can do to a person than kill them, Sasuke."

Orochimaru tried to escape twice while she stood watch over her once-teammate, but he was apprehended, beaten, and dragged back to his post each time. She saw the end of his second attempt once her guard shift was over, saw his captors effortlessly evade attacks made by a body pushed far past its limits, and couldn't say she felt the least bit of empathy.

_So many have died for him, so many more because of him._

_If he tried to switch bodies now, they would simply cripple the new one before he had a chance to get used to it, and he would be left even more weak and helpless than he is at the moment._

_Should I admire his determination, his hope for the perfect moment, or should I pity his cowardice?_

Sakura stopped outside of their assigned housing, a gutted once-home now serving as little more than a barracks, at the sound of the voices. Gaara was already there, talking quietly to a propped-up and bandaged Lee. Even as the temperature continued to drop, she couldn't bring herself to disturb the careful restructuring of their friendship. The air was more than chilly, the wall more than cool behind her as she listened to the voices murmur on, raise in soft laughter, fall silent.

Some time later, he emerged to stand beside her.

"Things are all right?"

"He understands. He also said that if I talk about you again like I did this afternoon then I'd have to answer to him, and that if I ever hurt you he'll kill me or die trying."

The breath she was carefully holding escaped in a sigh, then a chuckle. For a little while, it was enough to enjoy the night's silence beside him, though he didn't come any closer, didn't reach for her hand.

_Do I welcome the distance? Do his words from earlier still bother me?_

_No. On both accounts._

"You need to sleep."

"Soon. Will you..." _Keep me company? Be there when I wake up?_

"I'm either on watch or patrol until dawn."

She nodded. _Appropriate, I suppose, to put the one that can't sleep to work so everyone else may rest that much more safely._

"Tomorrow morning," he started, eyes unfocused. "You have the option to not be there for the execution."

"I will be, though. It's the least I can do – to stand witness for those lost."

He mouthed the words, repeating her silently, then nodded, jaw tightening, staring straight ahead. "If you come, don't leave. Don't turn your back. Not once."

_I'm missing something again._

"I can do that."

With a small noise of approval he moved to her, his embrace tense, his kiss brief. "I will see you in the morning."

**ooo**

Inside the building, Naruto and Kiba snored in tandem. Lee, the only person still awake, smiled at her as she sat beside him.

_Your acceptance speaks for your nobility. _She kept her voice low as to not disturb the others. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just a little sore. Nothing major."

"Kiba and Akamaru?"

"Broken ribs with one, a broken leg with the other. They'll be all right in no time, too." He chuckled quietly, glanced over to where their one friend was sprawled gracelessly across one of the mattresses on the floor. "Naruto, though... It just seems like he bounces back from everything, you know?"

She grinned. "Yeah."

Lee paused, then spoke again, doing nothing to stifle her vague sense of worry. "You're going tomorrow morning, too?"

"Yeah."

"Did he seem... weird about it? Or was it just me?"

"Yeah. He did."

_Something's up. And Gaara didn't tell either of us._

She waited at his side until he fell asleep.

**ooo**

The morning saw them closing in on what was once Sound's market square, Sand and once-Sound and Leaf filing in from all directions. To her far right, Sakura saw a robed and veiled form that could only be the new Kazekage. Directly across from him, guards held a silent Sasuke upright. Konoha's own collected quietly around Gaara, who stared at Orochimaru as though he expected him to raise an already thoroughly broken body up in defiance yet again. There were more bruises, more wounds on the captive than she remembered from the previous night. She assumed he had been restrained in the new fashion, useless arms lashed to a beam nailed to the post he was once tied to, after his third escape attempt.

_Crucifixion causes a slow death by suffocation,_ she remembered. _But he won't have the luxury of that._

She slid up to Gaara's left side, the back of her hand brushing his, in time to hear him whisper, "Formal, all the way."

Three darkly clothed figures split away from the crowd, moved towards the center where the small ring of guards broke apart, shifted away. The list of crimes they read was lengthy, culminating in aiding the rebel faction in Sand's civil war and the deaths of both the previous Hokage and Kazekage.

The new Kazekage's voice was low, yet carried. "Two hours." And she recognized the three circling Orochimaru as what they were – torture specialists.

Because she had promised, even though Gaara's expression as he watched the men work unnerved her, she stayed. Undeniably talented in their profession, the three coaxed brief cries from silence, screams from brief cries, then more screams from a throat already raw from screaming.

Minutes crept by.

Finally, they broke away, turned to their leader. "Kazekage, the time you requested is finished. We await your orders."

She felt Gaara's muscles flex as if they were her own, starting at his spine, working across his shoulders and down his arms, to where his hands clenched ever so faintly.

"The debt has been satisfied by my standards, and to the degree requested by the Fifth Hokage. However, there is still the blood debt to be called in." The Kazekage stepped forward, scanned the crowd. "Temari."

Temari stepped forward smoothly, perfectly, formally. "I, Temari, eldest child of the Fourth Kazekage, renounce my claim to the blood of the criminal Orochimaru."

The Kazekage nodded. "Kankurou?"

"I, Kankurou, second child of the Fourth Kazekage, also renounce my claim to the blood of the criminal Orochimaru."

_Oh no._

Faces turned towards them, towards him. "Gaara."

His lips pulled back from his teeth, voice steel over a whetstone. "I, Sabaku no Gaara, third child of the Fourth Kazekage, shall accept the charge of the blood debt, for my father and in remembrance of those lost."

When he moved forward, back straight, the air itself seemed to rush away to avoid his proximity. He formally accepted the knife offered him, then tossed it down. Blade half buried in the ground, it quivered momentarily, then was still.

_He knew._

Lee came up on one side of her, Naruto to another. Blindly, each groped for the other's hands, locked on.

_Don't look away, he said._

So she watched as he met Orochimaru's blank, pain-filled eyes, watched as those eyes took on a glimmer of recognition, of comprehension, of apprehension. Watched as the sand rose around him, and knew, as the screams started again, that even the three black-clothed figures backing away from Gaara couldn't tear a person apart with that efficiency.

Mercifully, it was over soon. Sand rushed in, shattered bones with a series of sharp cracks that made her stomach twist. When the red-haired ninja turned towards the Kazekage, when he passed a hand over his forehead, he smeared blood across his kanji.

Somewhere in the crowd, with a ragged gasp, someone was violently ill.

His eyes may have been a little too wild, but his question was close enough to formal. "To your satisfaction?"

A nod.

"With your permission?"

Another nod. Nostrils flaring, Gaara spun on his heel and walked away, crowd parting to let him pass.

In the shocked silence that followed, Temari approached, spoke. "It was appropriate. Nothing any of the rest of us could have done would have compared to that."

_On purpose. Used. _

_Again._

Sakura struggled to get loose from the hands holding hers. "I've got to go."

Temari saw her intentions and turned to her with a horrified stare. "You can't! Not now! He's so far gone... You know how blood gets him worked up! Can't you see? He'll kill you!"

She knew the truth of her reply the second the words hit the air, her voice too soft. "Can't you see you hurt him?"

Shaking herself free, she followed the path he had taken.

_Come to terms._

**ooo**

She found him a few streets down and over, kneeling beside a small fountain, washing himself off. The hand she tried to place on his shoulder was blocked by a sand shield.

_Does he see us all as threats, now?_

"Gaara. Let me in."

The shield fell as he turned to her. He blinked slowly, then went back to the red-tinged water, words bitter. "You may not want to touch me. I'm covered."

"That's why we have water." The serenity of her voice amazed her.

"There's a lot of blood on my hands. Water can't fix that."

"It's okay." Sakura ran a hand across the back of his neck, because she could, and sat on the lip of the fountain beside him.

For a while he washed with a single-minded intensity, rolling up his sleeves, running wet hands through his hair. She watched them come away red with more than cold.

_Wow, he really did get covered._

"You knew they would call you in."

"Of course. It's in all of them. Death may be a frightening thing, but death by something like me..." He laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. "That's the worst, the most terrifying thing of all."

_Something._

"You're not a something."

"I'm a weapon. I was made to kill. I was made for this."

_Yet your very nature seems to contradict itself. _

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it does." He shook his head and growled, then started to strip the shirt away. "Damned..."

_Years ago, you would have reveled in this, would have worn the evidence of your actions until it dried and flaked off solely to gloat at the reactions of those around you._

_We show you the one side of yourself, what you can be. They push you into the other._

It seemed wrong to ogle him as he thrust the shirt underwater, but the amount of blood that came off of it drew her attention away from his body. Understanding that he was attempting to clean a lot more than an article of clothing, she let him be up until the point that it looked like he would follow it in.

"You need an actual shower. And a towel. And something warm to wear. It's really too cold out here for this."

"I don't care."

One of the runners that had started the trip with them approached cautiously, watching him the entire time, and deposited a bundle of fresh clothing still some distance away.

_My presence apparently indicates some measure of safety._

_Or possibly not. It was one of our guys they sent._

"I'll tell the others where you are," the Leaf ninja said, then retreated.

_With the village as empty as it is, there's a decent chance that otherwise no one would find us out here for a while._

"I'll go get them," she told Gaara, and started to rise.

His hand landed on her thigh, clamped down hard. She covered it with hers, waiting until the spasm passed and he breathed easier.

_Everything that you are._

"Now?"

He nodded and let her go. She retrieved the bundle, setting it down beside him. Her chest tightened, impeding her breathing, as she watched him stare hopelessly into the fountain's basin.

"Gaara, come here."

He didn't move, so she moved to him, sitting in front of him with legs to either side of his, oblivious to how the coppery water he'd splashed everywhere soaked the bottom of her dress. He didn't resist when she pulled him in, pressed his damp head to her shoulder. If the smell of blood offended her on some level, it wasn't the one she was on at the moment, so it didn't matter.

Arms went around her hesitantly, then tightened.

_Peace. Absolution._

_I accept._

"It's okay," she whispered.

"It's never okay."

The grip on her shifted from barely comfortable to painful, but she refused to pull away, instead forcing a smile into her voice. "You're calling me a liar?"

He pulled back, gave her a glare that fell flat, shifted into a half-smile. "No."

"Then don't talk like that." Her hands glided up his arms, stopped at his shoulders. "You're freezing."

"I'll live."

"If I got this cold, you'd shove me back into the shower again. Or maybe an oven this time."

The arms around her released, hands coming to rest on her thighs. "Keep it up and I'll dunk you in the fountain instead."

_I wonder how far in he still is._

She sighed, reached for the black shirt at the top of the bundle of clothing. "Here. Put this on, at least."

He accepted it, sitting back on his heels to button it up as she fished in the frigid water for his old one. Looking back to him, she saw that the new shirt was gratuitously oversized. "They do this every time," he grumbled, rolling his sleeves up.

_The memory of you apparently looms larger than life._

Every time meant that there had been more times, enough times for a habit to have formed, but that didn't matter. "That's okay, too."

He snorted, finally looked back to her. "Nothing's okay. Don't you understand? This is what I do. This is what they use me for."

She reached for his hands, bit her lip. _Let him see what I mean._ "I understand."

Gaara rose back to his kneel, hands clasped with hers, nudging himself between her parted knees. "You..."

"I understand, and I accept."

His face was very close to hers, expression half-guarded though his fear and hope were evident. "Why?"

_Because I truly have come to terms with the violence that encompasses your joy and your pain, your hate and your love. Because everything that you are needs everything that I am. Because I never could turn you away, and because you knew it._

The simplest explanation worked just as well.

"Because I love you."

He pulled her tight against him, features suddenly hard, a hand releasing hers to wrap itself in her hair. "Say that again."

"I love you."

His lips crushed against hers harshly, with all the viciousness still left in his system. It was easy to let the force of their combined emotions override thought. Just when she thought that he wouldn't respond any other way, though, he pulled back. "I love you, too."

"Good," she tried to say, trying to lighten his mood, but the word was cut off when he kissed her again.

_Everything that he is._

The kiss deepened, hands racing, caressing. An arm around her waist drew her hips to his. When he pulled her to her feet, looking around, she knew his intentions. Half pulled, half pushed through the nearest open door, she had the barest second to wonder if he had been responsible for its occupants' demise, to reflect on how that should disturb her. Then the world narrowed down to the sound of his sand crashing to the floor, the hard thigh he pressed insistently between hers, the wall at her back, the barely controlled brutality of his lips, her hands tearing at his clothing as frantically as he tore at hers.

When she tasted blood on his neck, almost washed away yet still distinct, she ignored it.

His fingers found her dry, and he snarled. "You're not ready." The floor rushed up to meet her, his hand pressing her knee to the ground harshly, but she forgave every harsh thing he had ever done to her at the wet-rough feel of his tongue against oversensitive flesh. Sakura grasped at the floor, at anything, hands finally finding places wrapped in his hair, his discarded shirt, body working against the rhythm of his mouth.

_It's surely too much..._

She pulled him back up, kissing him, tasting herself on his lips as the curve of his thigh found hers and he slid home. This time she knew what to expect, how to move against him, what muscles to clench. She barely noticed when he pulled away from her kiss to watch her face as her release washed over her with a string of sobbing gasps, but when she came back to herself he was still watching, still moving.

_If this would be what it means to die under him, then I accept that also._

His voice was strange, rough. "That felt good."

"Yeah," she agreed, not sure how to deal with the look he was giving her.

"Get up."

Confused, she obliged, kissing him once they both reached their feet. It was harder to kiss him with her back pressed to his front, but still possible.

Hands traced over her. "You like me here?" Without waiting for a response, he filled her again. Her palms hit the wall to brace as his motion picked up.

Lips pressed against her shoulder. "Do that again."

She shot him a hazy, unsure look. He elaborated, this time definitely not talking about her back. "You get tighter. Do it again." The hand on her hip circled around, fingers searching, then working counterpoint to his body. His breath hissed against her ear. _"Let me feel it."_

The second time, what overran her senses wasn't as gentle but was infinitely better, and she screamed. His muscles locked as he pressed further, harder against her, the soft moan he muffled against the side of her neck satisfying proof that she had driven him over the edge.

Arms wrapped around her as she straightened, twisting to rub her cheek against his, their ragged breath mingling. Wanting to face him but still craving the closeness, she pulled free, then returned, hooking a leg over his hip and enveloping him while he was still able.

Gaara touched her cheek, smiling even as he feigned shock. "What, again?"

She laughed, wound arms around his neck. "No, no thank you. Any more and I'll break."

He chuckled. Fingers brushed along her back as he buried his nose against her throat.

For a moment, things were peaceful.

"_Sakura!"_

The panicked yell came from outside.

Everything fell into place simultaneously for both of them. Temari's warning. His soaked, bloody shirt by the fountain. Her scream.

"Shit," he muttered, before someone started to pound insistently on the door.

"Sakura!"

As one, they scrambled for their clothing. When the doorknob started to rattle, sand slammed into place to hold it shut. The shouts outside took on a new level of panic.

_Naruto, and Lee. And probably Kiba too. And there's a good chance of the runners, and then probably some of Sand's guys on top of that, and..._

_This is going to be a bitch to explain, _Inner Sakura quipped.

"Gaara! Gaara, let us in!"

"Where is she?"

"Damn it, Gaara, what'd you do to her!"

Halfway into his pants, Gaara looked up at her, apparently trying to bite back his laughter as much as she was, then turned towards the sources of the noise. "Guys, _**go away**._"

_Wrong thing to say..._

It had to be Naruto that threw the punch, because the chakra rippling into the door made the sand shudder. "Gaara!"

"Calm down, guys, it's okay," she called.

If anything, the voices grew louder – something about protecting, something threatening involving a shoe, a kunai, and Akamaru that frankly sounded physically impossible, and then something about breaking in through a window or another doorway.

_Shit._

"There's no easy way out of this, is there," he asked, humor evident on his face as he briskly re-buttoned his shirt.

"No," she grinned back, as he handed her the sandal she couldn't find, returned her laughing embrace.

_It's either laugh or die of embarrassment, right?_

"But then again," she said as they parted. "Nothing is ever easy."

"No, never." Hands caught hers, squeezed. "Well?"

"Well," she sighed, chuckling. "Here goes nothing."


End file.
